Saying a final goodbye to the goodest boy – Winnipeg Free Press

Opinion

I knew he was dying last Friday.

It had been a hard day for Samson, my Shih Tzu/Maltese mix, the dog I’d had since I was 27, the first dog my husband and I raised together as a couple.

We’d learned on the Thursday that he was severely anemic. While we were waiting for ultrasound results, Samson was throwing up clear liquid and had stopped eating — a problem exacerbated by his diabetes diagnosis.

All he wanted was to be outside, to rest in the cool grass. So that’s what we did.

It was one of those golden October days, the sky a brilliant, cloudless blue. We listened to the birds. I stroked his ears and that soft place between his eyes and told him it was going to be OK, and that it has been the privilege of my life to be his mom.

A few hours later we got the call from the vet. His little body was filled with unspecified masses. His liver was too big and his adrenal glands too small. He could have pancreatitis, or maybe an adrenal disease. Hospitalization was recommended.

When we visited him the next day, Saturday, he was on oxygen. I tried petting him through a window in the kennel he could no longer walk out of on his own. His nose was covered in the foamy vomit he’d just spit up. He had yet another glucose monitor stuck to his back. His legs were bandaged from the IVs. He still wasn’t eating. And when he looked at me with his big brown eyes — eyes that never, as I used to fear, went blind from end-stage diabetes — I knew.

He was done. No more.

The vet who did it was soft-spoken and wonderful. “No more suffering, baby, no more pain,” she said.

When Samson was a new puppy, he was able to fit into the palm of my hand. Twelve years later, he died in my arms.

Samson was the heartbeat of our home. Now that he’s gone, its rhythms are all thrown off.

So much of our days were synced around his schedule. Not just the 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. insulin shots — the Pokies — which became part of our lives in the summer of 2023, but his walks, his feeding times, when we’d watch TV at night, when we’d go to bed.

Samson had strong feelings about routine. He grew from a shy puppy into a smart, opinionated boy who liked to be wherever we were — he was always, as my husband says, “aggressively there.”

It’s amazing how cavernous a 740-square-foot bungalow feels without him in it. Save for the three weeks between buying our house and bringing Samson home, he’s always been there.

We packed away his leashes and his bowls and his blankets because having those things around made it feel like he was away on vacation and not dead. But the tiny claw marks on the front-porch windowsill are still there. The place on the back of the couch he smushed down over time is still there.

At night, I still think I can hear him yipping to go outside.

The missing him takes my breath away. I miss his perfect face. I miss the way he’d plunk the whole weight of his body down on me to watch TV in the evening. I miss his heavy, contented sighs. I miss hearing the jingle-jingle of his collar. If I were ever crying — which is often these days — he’d be all over my face with his bubblegum tongue. I miss asking him if he likes to wag and wiggling my body, which always made him wag. I miss the way his lip would get hung up on his lower canine tooth. I miss singing all the songs I made up about him, calling him by all his many nicknames and telling him he’s my baby guy.

I miss doing all our “bits.” Samson was the subject of many elaborate, ridiculous inside jokes in our house, such as the fake podcast he hosted called Laps of Luxury, in which he’d sit on famous women’s laps and “interview” them. We’d gallows joke sometimes, about the dreaded episode Final Lap, and how the very special guest would be Mommy. And it was, I guess.

I miss his fussiness. He would not touch his bowl of dry food if his dirty wet food plate was still anywhere near it — “Oh, can we take this out of your way, sir?” we’d ask him and he’d give us the famous Shih Tzu side-eye before tucking into his kibble.

He knew all his toys by name. He loved the breeze in his face. He loved a good sunbeam.

He also loved wearing a bandana. You couldn’t do anything to that dog without risking life or limb — brushing him, bathing him, trimming his nails, you name it, you weren’t doing it — except for putting on a bandana.

“Sammy, do you need a ‘dana?” I’d ask him and he’d park himself in front of me to do the honours. He liked to be handsome. “That’s the cutest puppy that comes down my walk,” I overheard one of the little girls who lives on our street brag about him to a friend once. The pride I derived from that five-year-old’s compliment is embarrassing.

My Samson was on borrowed time. We got 16 more months together after his diabetes diagnosis, and we had a particularly great summer. And then he took a sudden, shocking turn.

I’d been fearing this day for so long, and then it just … came. Even when he was young and healthy, I’d sometimes sob into his soft white fur, imagining the very worst day that always comes too soon. And if they are suffering, making the decision to say goodbye — the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make in my life — will be the last act of care and love you will do for them.

A couple days after Samson died, I did a yoga video in my home gym in a bid to feel better. He used to be so annoying during yoga, I thought as I unrolled my mat. What I wouldn’t give for him to be a menace.

During the meditation portion, the instructor said, “You are free to rest. You are free to be at peace,” and my face was suddenly slick with tears.

When it happened, when his little body went slack and melted into my arms, it felt like an elevator plunging to the bottom floor. But I know now he was letting go of all his pain, and I had to let him go, too.

My baby guy: you are free to rest. You are free to be at peace. You are free.

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Jen Zoratti
Columnist

Jen Zoratti is a columnist and feature writer working in the Arts & Life department, as well as the author of the weekly newsletter NEXT. A National Newspaper Award finalist for arts and entertainment writing, Jen is a graduate of the Creative Communications program at RRC Polytech and was a music writer before joining the Free Press in 2013. Read more about Jen.

Every piece of reporting Jen produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print – part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.