Whitney Writes…

Today marks three weeks since we said goodbye to our beautiful boy. He was thirteen years, ten months, and nine days old. He fought so long to stay with us. The vet from Lap of Love really helped put it in perspective: to have received the diagnosis he did at the start of the year, and to have gotten over five more months with him was truly something. A true testament of his love for us.

He was the best, most beautiful boy. He was my everything. My reason for trying, my reason for doing, my reason for being. He was always there with his version of a hug, those big lovey, soulful eyes of his, and he would make everything ok again, just by being there. I hope, in the end, we made it easier for him by just being there with him.

It’s been a hard adjustment, to say the least, to life without him. I find myself still looking for the dark shadowy form near the coffee table in our living room when I open our Nest cam to check on our puppy in his kennel. I listened for his bark the other night when we were outside. I saved the dried corn and carrots from my cup of Ramen from a lunch last week because I used to always bring them home to him.

But I think the worst bit of it all is the feeling like I’ve forgotten something when the other two pups and I come down in the morning, or when we go up to bed at night. His last four months, I was his ride up and down the steps. It was a hard responsibility, one I was not really ready for, but when Dexter broke my partner’s elbow at the start of February, it became our only option. And I would do it again for him in a heartbeat. I would take every sore muscle, and then some, if it meant getting him to sleep where he was used to. I just wish I had been more patient with him sometimes.

And that’s the other difficult thing in this. Towards the end, when his body was failing him, I lost my patience with him more than I would care to admit. A thing that eats me up inside. I just hope he remembers all the good times we had, how much I loved him. That my frustration only came from a place of so much love, because it was so hard to watch him struggle and fail. And I lost sight of the fact that as hard as it was for me, it was far worse for him. He was the one that could no longer do the things. And I forgot that. I hope he knows I was never mad at him, I was mad at the situation and the cancer. Never at him. And I hope he can forgive me of my short-comings.

Dexter Benjamin was a boy that got to go on many adventures. He hiked all along the North Shore of Lake Superior. He got to see a wolf on one of those hikes, and not at a distance, either. I can still remember the time, when he was a much younger boy, when he found a nest of baby bunnies in the yard and brought us one, ever so gently, and was so proud of himself. He got to go to a Minnesota Swarm game. He went on a vacation to Pittsburgh, and got to smell the smells of Chicago. He got to stay in a hotel for his birthday just outside Chicago on that very same trip! He also got the peanut butter sundae of his dreams while in Pittsburgh, a thing my partner and I like to think he still dreamt about and told it like a tall-tale to Blossom, and then Finan.

He got to dip his toes in both Lake Superior and Lake Erie. He got to hike the trails of Banning, Jay Cooke, Tettegouche, Cascade River, Itasca, Scenic, and Moose Lake – all Minnesota State Parks. He also got to hike the trails of Ohiopyle and Presque Isle State Parks in Pennsylvania, as well as a reserve in Bear Run, Pennsylvania. He got to visit Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, and West Virginia. He got to go to Falling Water – a famous Frank Lloyd Wright house. He went to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival.

A little known fact about our boy, he received a Best Acting Award back in 2017, when he convinced my partner that he couldn’t walk and made him carry him around over half our apartment building. My partner returned home, in a panic, that Dexter was hurt in some manner, only to discover when I brought him out before I left for work that he was just fine. He just hadn’t wanted to walk on the ice any more.

He was an especially lucky boy, and got his very own house. When we bought it, we didn’t want him to be afraid of a single place in it, so we scattered cookies from his favorite bakery all over. This was especially important, as our house did not have any carpet, just hardwood and tile. Which he had a severe aversion to. But he was able to get every single cookie with minimal encouragement.

That bakery was once at the Mall of America, outside of Macy’s on the first floor. We used to buy so many cookies from there, that the owner knew us. He knew we had a chocolate lab, and I think even remembered my parents had a golden retriever at the time. One day, when we went to the mall with the intent of buying cookies, we had the unpleasant surprise that the stall had closed. We later found out that the owner retired, as he could never find help, and sold the business to one of his baking partners. We were able to track her down online, however getting cookies like that was a bit difficult, for multiple reasons. We were thrilled when we found a shop in the Twin Cities that sold her cookies. But shortly after finding said shop, the baker announced she couldn’t keep up with it anymore and it was draining her. Again, she was doing everything herself. Before she closed up shop – with the hopes of returning one day – we ordered two huge orders of cookies, with the request that she include as many red and purple ones as she could (the colors our two pups wore). She went above and beyond, special making every cookie she could in the colors we requested. It legitimately brought tears to our eyes when we received the boxes. The point of this ramble is that while I hope she rekindles her passion and comes back one day, I am glad we ordered enough of the cookies that Dexter never had to live in a world where we maybe couldn’t get them anymore. Those cookies were his favorites, and they were the last thing he tasted before he left us.

I am not a religious person, but I like to think I possess some spiritualness about me. I do not know if I believe in a heaven or hell, but I cannot believe that this is all there is. So until I find out in my own way and time someday, I am going to hold on tightly to what a medium I saw years and years ago told me. She said she saw my little shadow cat, riding around on my shoulder, her tail draped across the back of my neck, always with me. While hopefully not on my other shoulder, I like to think that Dexter is always following me around, just like he used to. And I hope he balances his time between me and his dad, and remembers to check in on his grandparents from time-to-time. But most of all, I hope, wherever he is, he is free of the limitations of his body and happy, knowing how loved he was, and still is, chasing his Auntie Ivy around and annoying his old friend Oscar.

Until we meet again, my love, tacos and snow will never be the same without you. I will think of you and miss you every day, but hopefully it will hurt a little less each time.