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grief is not an emotion well practiced. nonetheless, the older we get, the more familiar grief becomes.
i’m absolutely shattered to share that Cookie, my six to seven year old former kill shelter pitbull, passed away yesterday, sunday october 13th, peacefully, before cancer could take her from us. she spent her final days at home with emily and i.
this note is an exercise in grieving.
Cookie’s life had been threatened before: in 2019, an emergency vet diagnosed her with canine lymphoma, estimating she had 72 hours left to live. she made it almost 72 more months, persevering and persisting through a wicked illness to bless everyone in her atmosphere with five more years of affable, wiggly butt, bizarre grunting Cookie.
perhaps the above anecdote is a fitting articulation for the magic of Cookie, because even as i write this dedicated note to honor her existence, i struggle for words descriptive and powerful enough to personify her unique being.
i rescued Cookie from a kill shelter in San Angelo, Texas on February 20th, 2018. i was renting a Clarksville condo on Palma Plaza with a strict no pet policy. fortunately, Cookie quickly proved to be much more than a pet and i fell so deeply, madly, hopelessly in love with her that i’d sacrifice any previous agreement to sign on as Cookie’s partner in life.
so we became partners. and we moved, and we traveled. we swam in the Pacific Ocean, climbed mountains in Montana and colorful Colorado, howled at the moon in hot springs in New Mexico, and fell in love with a husky named Saghan and her beautiful best friend, Emily.
upon Emily and i’s first outing, Saghan forever marked Cookie’s snout with a love scratch symbolic of our next six years together: deep, passionate, and healing.
even before the scratch sealed itself, it became the four of us, in perpetuity, inseparable.
although our inseparability proved to be vulnerable, Cookie and i stayed together through various bouts of loneliness and separation, forever each other’s antidote, able to create tail wags even on the rainiest of days.
just as they did before, our wounds would heal and we’d find ourselves back together, living under the same roof, drinking from the same water bowl, and barking at the same passerbys.
Cookie was always much more Cookie-like when Saghan and Emily were around.
our inseparability was stronger than ever this past summer, our last together. each morning, for 70 mornings, Cookie, Saghan, Uni, Emily and i hiked Goose Creek, an out and back 4 mile, 1200 ft elevation gain, through the Gallatin National Forest of Montana.
Cookie has likely been carrying this cancer in her stomach for months, but you wouldn’t know it by her sprinting, chasing, and rolling over wildflowers everyday on this nonnegotiable, family hike through towering Pine Trees at dawn.
now that she’s gone, i understand that the time in the mountains, under the cooler skies was Cookie going out on her own terms: happily exhausted, chipmunk curious, and insatiable to lick the last of the day from her sister’s panting mouths.
Cookie is without question the best dog i’ve ever had. she is likely the most human thing about me, proof that i can love someone so much more than i love myself.
and now i’m a little less myself without her.
these wounds will heal, as they did before, even if Cookie isn't around to lick them for me. as we laid in bed together in her final moments, with Uni, Saghan, and Emily, Cookie reminded me that we will always be inseparable, that no lifetime can keep us apart.
dogs have this incredible ability to turn nonbelievers into devout, strongholds of faith – even after they’re gone.
and in a world where its so hard to believe in anything, i believe in Cookie and all the good she created while she was here.
from kill shelter to killer queen.
Thank you, Cookie.
– mills
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