Sometimes you need some help getting the tears to flow.

As most of you know, Cassie (left) died over a month ago. We got the word while we were on a Viking riverboat on the Danube. I cried immediately upon hearing the news and then again that night when Ransom and I hugged each other to sleep. I didn’t have an extended cry or cry over several days, partly because we were on a working vacation and maybe because we were so far away. Since returning home I’ve spent more time than usual hugging our two remaining dogs, Zack and Zeus. They seem to sense that something is wrong, or is that my imagination? Obviously they see that Cassie is not with us, but do they know why? Who knows? 

For a month the crying jag that I thought was likely coming got derailed somewhere between too much to do at home and too much running around. I didn’t TRY not to cry; I just didn’t.

That all changed last week. I read Rescuing Sprite: A Dog Lover’s Story of Joy and Anguish by Mark Levin. Then I read Me and Marley by John Grogan and A Search for the Perfect Dog by Gary Shiebler. They’re all short and sweet; none of them are Pulitzer-winning masterpieces but each of them is wonderfully comforting and at the same time acts as the perfect emotional lubricant to leech the sadness from within.

I cried on three different Metro North trains. I cried at home on the couch in the bedroom and on my favorite reading chair in my office. I cried while Zack put his head in my lap and tried to lick away my tears. I cried while Zeus bent over me on the bed and washed away my sadness.

So many tears. So much joy. Sadness too, but as I look back at our lives with our dogs, I remember mostly the warmth and the love and the kisses. Brendan was our first, a Sheltie who grew up in New York City and never quite got over the fears that experience instilled in him. Maggie, a puppy who didn’t survive three months, and Toby our 85-pound lab mutt who lived to be a remarkable 16. Misha, his best buddy, our first Husky and a major loss at only 11 years old.

Then there was Jake who we rescued as a young adult and tried unsuccessfully for two years to fit into our pack. We failed, but found him a home in Washington state where he lived to be 14 as the perfect dog once he was the only dog.

Lucky we rescued when he was two but, in a mockery to his name, he died at seven from cancer. Tasha, rescued from the same shelter as Lucky, lived 13 years with us; Paulo, from the Woodbridge Shelter, was tragically run over by a car as he bolted for home, having been scared in the woods.

That makes eleven dogs who have shared our lives and given us so much joy and love.

When I cried those tears last week I felt sad, yes, but mainly I felt humbled that there exists such a creature as the family dog. Its only job is to love us and it does that job magnificently. I miss you Cassie, just as I miss all your brothers and sisters but I thank you from the depth of my being for all you gave us. To have benefitted from your comfort for 12 or 15 years would have been wonderful and remarkable. To have done so for 18 years is mythical, epic, and far beyond anything I deserve.

Zeus, 10 and our kissingest dog ever

Zack, 5 and still puppyish

Brendan (d 1997) and Maggie (d 1987)

Toby (d 2004)

Misha (d 2000)

Jake (d 2014)

Lucky (d 2010)

Tasha (d 2011)

Paulo (d 2013)