Chris and Becky let Zeke go today.  It’s both lamentable and good, two opposite emotions struggling to define an event that cannot be defined.  If you’ve ever lost a non-human member of your family, you know precisely what I mean.

While I could point out a plethora of writs on his blog that would bring you closer to this experience in ways undeniable, instead I want to share a select few that you must go see (besides the one linked to above).

Hell, encapsulated in one sentence: A photo and one sentence.  The true realization that Zeke was not long for this world.

Just a dog: A brief excursion through memories and feelings.  These are fields we try to avoid, places we don’t want to go, yet landscapes that draw us in with hooks and lines that cannot be overcome.

Dark: To tell tales of beastly friends, especially those no longer able to speak for themselves.  Ah, but a simple monologue of one night… in the dark.

Monday, January 29, 2007: Now but a week ago, yet a lifetime felled betwixt here and there.  And what of the dog who knows, just as you do, that the time has come, but who, like you, is not quite ready to let go?  What then?

Please: To quote: “You whose dogs still walk with you: please. Please take them where they want to go. For Zeke. Because I cannot.”  When the last walk has come and gone, what else can you do?

I would be your legs for ever, if you would have it.  It’s mostly photos and a brief thought following each.  That was yesterday.

Finally, today, the link posted at the beginning of this entry.

But let me leave you with a final thought written by Chris last August when Zeke’s condition began to deteriorate.  If you see or read nothing else, I ask that you read this: Immortal.  Accept this small sip from that heartfelt outpouring:

He is ancient at fifteen and a half years old, and I am three times his age. I have changed much since we met, but mainly on the inside. Those changes cannot easily be sniffed out. I am an oak to him, a rock face. He surely no longer remembers the days before we sprang a lithe nine-month whelp from stir. I have been his world forever. My life stretches on past his for perhaps twice his allotted time or more, our time together the center of it. I am immortal to him and yet I find no comfort in it, nor in the prospect of a tidier house next year, an extra hour in the mornings. Were my lifespan flesh I would give him half. His expectant stare has always worked on me. I never managed to teach him not to beg.