This lovely young woman is Ashley, who was a student of ours when Elizabeth and I taught at Mission Prep. With her is another lovely girl, Isadora, her Wheaten. My sister, Sally, has a Wheaten named Tillie. They are lovely dogs–eager, frolicky, and more affectionate than your typical terrier, a prickly but adorable lot. Wheatens are charmers and even more charming because they aren’t pretentious about it. Their main business is going about being a dog.

Isadora has a tumor in her lung and so her days are  numbered. When I learned this, there was a deep and profound hurt inside.  I have a hard time with death.

The worst, of course, was Mom’s, who died at only 48. She was and will always be the most formative person in my life, the main reason I get into trouble (when I perceive injustice of any kind, I can’t keep my mouth shut), the main reason, too, for me becoming a teacher, and she instilled in me a belief in God that a lifetime of hurt and anger can’t dent.

One reason I still believe the way my mother did has nothing to do with Mom. It has everything to do with dogs. I’ve been around them all my life–beginning with a Scottish Terrier and a Cocker Spaniel in my first memories, on Sunset Drive in Arroyo Grande–and the dogs who complete my life today are Mollie and Brigid, our Irish Setters, and Wilson, our Basset.

Mollie will leave us soon. I notice this more because the grizzling of her muzzle and the gradual slowing of her gait, her struggles to climb onto the sofa or our bed, make her aging so obvious.  (At sixty-five, I secretly identify with her, especially when I go to the gym and watch, out of the corner of one eye, twentysomethings doing workouts I could never hope to do. Damn them!)

Every time a dog leaves us, when we hold their heads in our hands and talk softly to them, we aren’t quite sure whether the last moments we spend together are somehow wasted, if the understanding between us and our dog is somehow incomplete. As I get older, I have come to believe these moments aren’t wasted at all. I think the animals somehow know what is happening and understand  the earnestness of our words when we tell them how much we love them. We are part of their passage and they need, as we all will someday, the comfort of company as they cross that fearful space that leads to the other side.

In a lifetime of dogs, I have loved each a little differently and they have loved me with no discrimination whatsoever. They are entirely unselfish in love, if not in food or rawhide treats. We don’t encounter that kind of love very much in life–the “unconditional” kind, to use a trite adjective–and that’s what makes losing an animal one of the most painful moments in any human’s life.

This how much they love us: When I was researching the book Central Coast Aviators in World War II, the historian for the 92nd Bomb Group told me that a dog would grow so close to her human that ground crews noticed that she would get noticeably excited when the B-17s returned to base. Of course, the dogs could hear the bombers long before the ground crewmen. But what they noticed was the dog’s excitement at the sound of her human’s B-17. She had learned to recognize the individual pitch of his airplane’s engines.

So it’s supposed to hurt because they love us the way God does: without stipulation, without judgment, without reservation, and so when they leave us they leave an immense empty space inside. I spend, and have spent, much of my life criticizing myself, condemning myself, and finding fault with myself. But every morning there is a miracle: Brigid is so transparently happy–and wiggly– to see me again after a night’s sleep that she gives me enough confidence to start another day. There is something in me that she finds invaluable and joyful. I think God must see that something, as well.

I think, too, that God understands that dogs and their humans need to be together. Ashley’s dog, Isadora, has a bond with her that can’t be broken. Heaven, I suspect, is a place for happy mornings where we will see each other once again and forever.