Here is Mac's Eulogy. I don't usually post stuff on Facebook like this, but I felt an overwhelming need to do so...perhaps it is part of the healing process for me. I rarely feel such strong emotions and the only way I know how to try and heal is through writing. So sorry it’s so long. This is how I'm feeling, and how I feel about Mac, my little buddy, who passed last night.

Last night, as I stepped into my home, everything resonated with my loss. Everything was quiet, still, somber…it didn’t feel right. I could barely lift my feet over the threshold. They felt like lead weights, my grief pulling me down, my mind wanting to find a hole to climb into that was void of all things…anything to suffocate my anguish. Snap shots of images flashed through my mind, each memory feeling like a rock on my back, adding to the despair that seemed to be smothering me. I couldn’t shake the pain. It was like I was trying to swim to the surface of a river roaring of grief with an anvil tied to my ankles. That’s how I felt last night, that is how I feel now. Mac, our three year old little furry boy, died last night.

How can the death of a dog make me feel this way? All I know is the pain I feel is real. One thing I’ve learned from my wife is that grief is personal…it’s individual, and it’s relative to your own life experiences. For Jodi and I, little Mac was the boy we could not have. He was our baby adopted at a crucial time in our lives. We dumped everything we had into him, and still do for our big girl, Meadow. But even now, surrounded in this miasma of sorrow, I am trying to rationalize my pain by saying he was just a dog. How can the loss of my little buddy, Macallan, make me feel like I lost a loved one, a member of my family? Well the answer to that question is simple…it’s because I did lose a member of my family. Jodi and I could not have kids, so we dumped all of our love into our puppies. There were no kids to distract us from them, no one needing help on homework or rides to soccer practice. We didn’t hear voices of our children when we came home from work. We saw our puppies wagging their tails and barking in excitement. We didn’t see our children learn to use the toilet or tie their shoes; we saw ours finally go to the door when they had to pee, or sit and stand under direction eagerly awaiting their treat. They were, and are, the center of our worlds, and everything we did revolved around them. To help me heal, I want to try and answer that question…how can the death of my dog make me feel like I do now, like the world is crumbling around me? I feel bad even saying it, as I have friends who have lost so much more, and there are people all around the world who have lost so much more than a dog. My loss, compared to theirs, is like a speck of salt floating in the ocean. But it doesn’t feel that way to me. I wish it did. I wish I could just shake it off and say; he was just a dog.

This is what Mac was to me. He was my friend who greeted me every day when I got home. No matter how I felt, how tired I was, he was there, with a toy in his mouth, and his tail wagging like he had not seen me for a year. Sometimes the toy was so big that he had to snort as he tried to breathe through his excitement. He tried really hard to give me the toy in his mouth because he wanted me to enjoy it as much as he did. He would rub his nose against mine and nudge my mouth with the toy. It was like he was saying…"here you go papa, play with this, it’s so much fun." Even up to his last day he tried to get that toy to me. There was no grumpiness, no malice, no selfishness…he simply wanted me to enjoy the moment with him, like it was a new experience, like it was something we hadn’t done every day at 4 o’clock. I could leave for an hour and come back, and still he greeted me like it was the first time, so overjoyed to see me that there was nothing “bad” in my life that could ever compete with such loyalty, enthusiasm, and joy.

But let’s roll back time some. Mac wasn’t an angel all the time. My little buddy definitely experienced his terrible twos. There wasn’t a sprinkler head, a door mat, a soft cushiony bed, or even a hot tub cover that he didn’t chew or rip apart. He even went to work for an entire year on my back gate, gnawing through boards like it was a gingerbread house. He even nibbled on some really tasty wood siding by our back door. I knew that he had been bad when I got home and he wasn’t at the back door to greet me with his toy. I didn’t know what I was going to find when I opened the door, but one thing was for certain, he would be hiding somewhere, slowly walking away from me, his head down but looking back at me with a look so forlorn that it was hard to stay mad at him. I always pictured him saying…"I’m so sorry papa, I could not help it, please don’t be mad at me." It was like the last thing he ever wanted to do was cause us any pain or frustration. I see that image in my head and the grief grips my heart again. Why is that? I remember being so frustrated with him, but now I look back at it longingly, wishing I could see that look one more time. I think when we learn to love something, that everything they do and say becomes a part of who they are, and the love we feel encompasses all of them. I loved that about my little buddy. He was so damn cute even when he made mistakes, and his heart was always so full of innocence. But luckily he grew out of that phase.

I don’t often have such strong feelings as I do now. The mind is such a magnificent thing, but there are times like now where I wish we could just turn it off. Images continue to dance through my mind, carrying with them a sadness based on the knowing that I will not be able to experience those events with him ever again. Mac and Meadow were our travel companions. They were the screaming kids in the back of the car on family vacations. Mac will no longer be sitting in the back of my truck, his soft body pressed against the divider, his head stretched over the side of my seat resting on my shoulder, his warm breath kissing my neck. I won’t be able to laugh at him when he sprawls on the carpet with his back legs splayed out behind him, crawling across the floor in an army crawl. Or when he falls asleep in my arms, lying on his back, with his mouth open and his under bite exposed. I won’t be able to see him chase the birds on the beach, or jump up and play with Meadow, trying to nibble her neck and bite at her heels. I won’t be able to feel the pull of the leash when he tries to run after a squirrel, or hear the hmpffff of his growl when he doesn’t like someone. I won’t be able to see him lying on the cool floor against the counter while Jodi and I taste wine. I won’t be able to feel his tongue on my face or hear his gentle snoring in my ear. I won’t be able to look out the kitchen window and see him lying in the grass where he had found that one spot warmed by the sun, his eyes closed in a comforting sleep as he soaks up the sun’s welcoming heat. Just now I’m sitting at my chair in my office, and I can hear him sit down beside me. I look over at my fly tying table and I think about all the times where I talked to him while tying a fly, telling him how this one fly is going to catch me a big fish. He would look up at me and try to jump into my lap, eager to be a part of what I was doing. I could go on and on, but still I go back to that thought, but he was just a dog, why do I feel like this?

Not to me he wasn’t. Not to Jodi either. He was our little boy. He was my little buddy, and even though I know we will get over this loss, I cannot ignore how I feel right now. I cannot ignore his empty bed by the couch, or his collar hanging by the door. I cannot ignore his toys scattered on the floor, never again to feel his joy. I can’t look past his dog bowl, sitting lonely in the corner, waiting for him to come and lick it clean. As I said before, I do not often feel emotions such as the ones I feel now, and I am trying to embrace them to hopefully help me heal, another thing my wonderful wife has taught me. If I could go back three years ago and pick another dog from the litter, I would not. Despite the pain I feel now at his passing, Mac was ours, and we were his. He gave us everything he had for three years, and even though he struggled in the end, I believe he held on for so long because he didn’t want to leave us…he loved us as much as we loved him. He was born with a bad heart, and I like to think that his heart was so big because it was filled with so much joy and love. But last night his heart finally said, “I can’t hold anything more, it’s time for me to rest.” What could we do but make his pain go away. We were holding him when he died. I didn’t want to let him go. He was only three…we should’ve had so many more wonderful years with him. The grief I felt while he was looking at me is tearing me apart. He was at peace, but I wanted more time with him. But he can rest easily now…no more struggling to breathe, no more standing at the base of the stairs because they looked so daunting to his tired heart. We will always think of him, and smile, remembering him as the dog who could eat a hole through a hot tub cover and still steal your heart. He was my boy, he was Jodi’s baby, he was our family, and he will be remembered as such, even though he was just a dog.

If you got this far, please pour a nice shot of something and salute our lovely Mac. We will miss him.

Jason M.