An emotional goodbye

Around midnight, at bedtime Jolmer calls my name from outside of the bus. Flickie is dead. Just like that. There is her body on the ground. From a distance it looks like she is sleeping, but of course she would never remain on the ground when approached by Jolmer, and this time she does. She is also quite cold. She might have been this way for a couple of hours, we don’t exactly know.

There is no sign of any injury as far as we can tell, and we are puzzled as to what could have possibly happened. She was in perfect shape all day.

It is awful to see her like this. We cry.

Tomorrow we shall tell the children and find a place to burry her.  Once we are in bed we cannot sleep, our tears wake up Laura who hears us talk and for second believes she is in a very bad dream when she realizes what we are talking about. She crawls into bed with us to share in our crying session.

The next morning I don’t know what to say to the children. Well, I know what to say, but I don’t know how to say it. Jolmer has to break the news.

We go over to the trailer so that they can see her, and understand what we have to do next.

It is the saddest thing. Laura, Jaap and Peter shed tears, like us. Funnily enough Tim and Hugo remain completely dry. It must be something about age and emotional maturity.

We all grab something that we want to burry with Flickie. Jolmer grabs one of his shirts to cover her. When we first had her has a pup, he would put his shirt with her over night in her sleeping basket. That brings us full circle.

 We locate a good spot and Jolmer digs Richmond, for real this time. With all the world famous fossilised dinosaur bones, we feel it’s only appropriate to add to the earth the remains of only the very sweetest dog in Australia.

Apart from Jolmers shirt some favorite shells from the children join Flickie in the hole, to symbolise all the long walks we had with her in the past few months, combing the beaches for things to find. I bring a peacock feather from Darwin to celebrate all the chickens and other birds and animals she would always try to round up in our back yard. 

Once she is covered over with dirt we say things that we are grateful for or what we liked about her so much. 

I for instance remember fondly when we went snorkelling near Albany at Muttonbird Island. Jolmer went in with Laura. Flickie followed him with her eyes for the entire duration of his time in the water. When she realised he was coming back to shore she ran over the rocks and into the water to welcome him back. I never knew she did that every time Jolmer went snorkelling.

So I have been told dogs will teach you two things. When they come into your life they teach how to love and when they go, they teach you about letting go. It was a lesson that was not due for a couple more years at least. We shall miss her tremendously.