Wild Empath Chronicles – RIP Pheobe
Its 10:30 Wednesday night, I let the dogs out one more time to pee. Phoebe has a bladder the size of a peanut and gets me up in the night to let her out. I am tired and want a good night’s sleep so I let them out one more time. About 15 minutes later Kia is at the door whining. Kia never comes back first and I know something is wrong. I call Phoebe a few times and listen, its pitch dark here and I hear every sound, the cat rustling in the leaves, a horse groan as it gets back up, but no Phoebe. I get in the truck and make the drive. I live near a busy road, but at night it’s pretty quiet and really the only thing I worry about is the coyotes, but I haven’t heard them since I moved in. Kia jumps in the truck but not on the back seat like usual, she sits in front and looks out the window. I head east first to the stoplight looking alongside of the road…but so far nothing. I pull a u at the light and head back towards home. Kia is getting upset, and she stares along the roadside, then I see her.
I get out with my little flashlight, she is still warm, her eyes are cloudy, she is not bleeding, just dead. I kind of shake her, just to make sure, but no.. even though she is warm her life is ended. I come home get the poop wagon, a quad with a little trailer, she is over 70 pounds I can’t lift her into the truck. I drive down the road in the dark to where she is laying. In the dark I apologize for rudely putting her in the trailer, “I mean no disrespect” I say. I get her home, park in the barn and go to bed.
I have dreams of her just being hurt and she is alive in the morning, dreams of her being a dork, dreams of me yelling at her because she needs out to go pee. I wake to the pink clouds of morning, and set out to finish my task. I am on hard red dirt; I can’t find a place to dig a hole. I go to 5 spots and the best one is behind the arena, nearest to the road. Again I apologize, and start digging. I hear my dad say, its not deep enough, I hit hard pan and curse being female at that point. I am not strong enough to dig through it. Dad says, “Something will dig that up, then you will have a real mess”. Dead fathers can be a pain in the ass sometimes. It’s about a foot deep is all, but I can’t go any farther, so I laid plastic down, pull her out of the trailer and drug her to it. I gently covered her up, told her she deserved better, and started covering the hole. I put a piece of horse fencing over it, then a piece of plywood, and then took two scraps to make a cross. The whole time Kia is watching, looking at me.. and comes over now and then for a pet. I say a few words, then come back inside.
So that’s the start of my day today. For those of you that read this and think, Geez, its just a dog. I answer, there is no such thing as Just a dog. RIP Phoebe.
