Last Thursday, the most painful thing in my life happened.  my dog, my baby, passed away.

I am not really sure why I am writing this down.  I guess it's how I am coping; I feel like I have no idea how I am supposed to feel, no idea how to cope, but I have been keeping myself sane by composing this, piece by piece, by writing this in my head since the second he left me.  I feel like I want everyone to know this, and no one to know this....i want of course, the one thing I can't have. I want my best friend back. I want him to be here and to feel his prickly fur and to look into his honey colored eyes and to say things to him in a stupid voice that I am sure embarassed him. I miss him.

I've never ever ever loved anything like I loved that dog.  It was complete, it was unconditional, and most importantly, it was reciprocal.  Shanghai was the best dog ever. There is no hyperbole in that statement.
He consumed my heart, entirely.  He was my life.  When I was at school, he went to parties with me. He dressed up for Halloween.  He went out on cold days and snorted and snuffled and made vapor clouds in the air, enjoying the weird Texas weather. He was that 'one cool dog' that you always want to know. He went to class and people sketched him during figure drawing. He went on long walks and people admired how pretty he was... and he was pretty. Golden and sporty, like a race car, but with a hint of wrinkles.  Big soulful eyes...a coat with tiny prickles like a cactus...but he was perfect.  He was patient; never once hurting any other animal, not the countless pet rats, not the silly pug dogs...not even a squirrel who bit him first. I could watch him for hours, the way the little gears moved in his head, how he learned things, how he adapted and figured me out, learned how much he could get away with, and what he needed to do to make up for the things that he wasn't able to get away with. He had  a million nick names...all of them dumb, but all of them would make him dance.  And he could dance! And sing! And speak! His tricks were amazing.  Even better when I think we taught him ourselves.   He learned strange things on his own too...how to grumble at a ringing phone, how to wake up a sleeping household by rousing up his little brothers or sisters...Even that if he made a noise approximating gagging, i'd be out of bed like a shot. Clever boy. Too clever.

My family loved him, my mom even sent home treats for him, sometimes even without sending treats for me.  He was loving, but not smothering.  His vet never failed to marvel at him, always the same pleasant suprise at how uncharacteristically GOOD he was...(sharpei are notorioiusly grouchy....) 'boy he sure is a happy guy, isn't he?' he'd say.  I like to think he was happy.  But not excessively so.  He wanted attention, but on his own terms. And when those terms were stated, they were not to be ignored.  His wrinkly peanut head was like a snuggle projectile, and he was deadly accurate with it; able to breach the hold of an elbow, a hand, demand pets WHEN THEY WERE NEEDED. And they were always given...it was my job, of course. I loved that job.

In the pie chart of my life, the majority was SHANGHAI, and a little slice for other things, like toothpaste and car insurance...He made this dull, horrid job bearable, when I knew that I was able to spoil him and treat him like he deserved. I think he deserved more than that.
He was there for me when no one else was, when they couldn't be, when it would be too much to ask for them to be.  He outlasted other loves and other friendships, bitter quarrels and the darkest of days.  He was a comfort when I was ill, a shoulder to cry on, the perfect size and shape to hug.  He was always there.  He even forgave me for leaving him for a whole year.  I think now that was the stupidest move; I could have had that much more time, that much more of a chance. Hindsight is 20/20.
  
In the end, it was hard. It happened so fast that it still seems like a bad dream. The kind you wake up from with a scream trapped in your throat, the fear so visceral it has sucked your voice from your body.
In the evening before he was lethargic, that morning, in the vet's office, having surgery to save his life...and only 2 hours later he was gone.  Fate has a funny way of fucking with me.

I told him that he could go. That if it was too painful, that he could let go, that it was alright. He had done a good job, he had done all he could do and he didn't have to fight anymore.  He had trained his little brother to watch the house, he had given me the best damned 9 years of my life.  He waited for the first full day of spring, for me to say goodbye, then he left.

So for that, I have to try to keep myself together. I told him it was ok, and I need to make good on that. But it's so hard. I miss him so much that it makes it hard to breathe sometimes.  My house is full of reminders...from the paintings on the wall to the damage he made to the door frame when he was angry...even the little slivers of his prickly fur that I still find in my clothes. I can be fine for hours, then catch myself calling him him, or opening the back door to let him out, or using his voice to say something...his special voice that everyone knew about...the voice my friends all used for him too.
I wake up afraid a lot. I don't know of what. But I think it's like the world is wrong; that things that should not, could not happen have now done so.  Who's to say that other, improbable and awful things won't follow? The sun may cease to shine, the earth will stop spinning. If something so good can go so fast, who is to say that the fabric of time won't shred?

But I know this to be untrue.  At least for everyone else. My world is shaky and tenuous but outside the day still begins and life goes on. I don't know if I hate it or not. I'm still not sure how I feel. All I know is that I still want, more than anything, to wake up and to feel him sleeping by my feet. If I live 100 years, I know I will feel the same. It must be that something with so much concentrated good cannot live as long as we humans.  That is the only logical reason I can see to bestow a dog with such a short life,one that leaves their owners reeling with shock and aching at the sight of gentle phantoms.

You're gone and you've left a hole in my heart that i'm never going to fill. I'm always going to reach down to my side and miss your attentive head, just at the right level to pet, by my side. I will miss your funny little orange slice ears, your velvety muzzle, your funky toe nail and your crooked tail...and of course, your smile. Don't ever let anyone tell you that dogs don't smile, or laugh, because they do. Shang did all the time.

Shanghai, I want you to know I love you very, very much.  I have known real companionship, and true love, and I learned about them from you. Good bye, my old heehaw, my good boy. I cannot wait until the happy day when we can hang out  in the grass on some sun dappled lawn someday, somewhere far away, when the spring never ends.



if you should die before me
ask if you can bring a friend
pick a flower, hold your breath
and drift away