Bonnie Files: The Last Chapter

Bonnie 1994-2011.

We had just finished another round of testing, new medications, phone conversations with the vet. We had the tough conversations, the ones where we discussed how far to go, how deep to take the measures to prolong Bonnie's life.

She was having another crisis, another bad day when we wondered if this was it. But it had happened before and she had rallied so we called the vet in the morning and went to work.

And that's when she died, stretched out on a blanket in the dog run, on a sunny day with a slight breeze, all alone.

And that is what bothered us the most. Not that her last year was hit and miss as far as her health, not that we didn't do everything we could to make her happy and feeling good. But that we weren't there for her in her last moments. Not that putting her down was a thing we wanted to do but at least she wouldn't have been alone and we could have comforted her and she us.


But hindsight is never very useful and we had to move on. Brian placed her on a clean bed and put that inside a Methow apple box -- so fitting, we thought. He took her to the vet and she was cremated; her ashes came back in a tiny polished wooden box that will be buried with Grandma and Grandpa Hole in Methow Valley.

It must be age, or maturity, or numbness but death doesn't hit me the way it used to. It seems like part of the plan, not a happy event but something that has to happen for all the rest to see fruition. Even the bodies of the dead don't unnerve me like they used to when I was younger.

Looking at Bonnie nestled in her apple box was not sad but it was not dispassionate either. It just was. She looked exactly like Bonnie, but she didn't. It was like looking at  Bonnie suit, whose owner had just unzipped the cover and stepped away.

To me that's the most comforting thing about death, seeing the body -- it's so obvious that your loved one is no longer there. You know they have left and they are at peace.