What a beautiful name, Aegis. Endorsement, guidance, protection.

I lost my big lab, Aegis, back in the beginning of January. He was my right-hand dog in so many literal ways. I had a lovely little preemie goat born in the midst of it all. She died six hours after I brought Aegis’ body back home. I buried them together since he always loved looking after the goat kids. You are so right. The honey and the edge of the knife.

[And a note of coincidence: my Max, Jr. was named after a little orange tabby kitten (who retroactively became Max, Sr.). He went missing the summer before I lost my then-sweetie (to another), followed closely my mom (to cancer). The little orange tabby Max was a harbinger of what was to come, a snowflake before the storm. So the dog took his name, to honor him (and to hopefully cork up the loss for a while). Since every cat she met was the boss of Max, I can assure you that if they cross paths wherever they are, my girlie will only wistfully look at yours (and ask: "Gonna eat that? Gonna eat that? I'll eat that.").]

I have recently learned as well, that the holes they leave in our lives are as big as the wonderful spirit and devotion that they share with us.

Right now there should be a little orange tabby kitty butting her head against my hand and telling me to stop typing and pet her.

I dreaded the loss of her as of the first day I joined Maxi’s life to mine, since she was a coda to loss, or my attempt at its antidote. At the time, I had vowed not to love anything so much that its loss would buckle me. I had to make an exception for family and friends whom I already loved, of course. But Maxi was going to be the only thing I would choose to love, for a very long time. And she had to last as long as it took for me to be able to bear her loss. I think maybe maybe she has. She now leaves me with a pack of three, where before there were none. May I be so lucky as to see this pack through many decades of jorneying, intact, ’til I go.

The love of a companion animal is unique in the pantheon of loves we know. Even when one’s aware of the dangers of anthropomorphising, or of underestimating the opportunism that is present in the relationship (in both directions), still, all of us who experience this love knows how powerful it is (hell, so mighty an intellectual as Donna Haraway wrote i>The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, Humans, and Significant Otherness). There is nothing like the completed circle we provide for one another, and, with dogs, the unlikely mixture of our being both protected by them and responsible for them at one and the same time.

From so many people’s kind notes, I know how widely shared this love and sorrow is, and do hope that sharing Maxi and this process helps us all in some kind of way. I know I appreciate the company.