Yesterday was a very, very hard day.
We had to say goodbye—unexpectedly—to my beloved granddog, Eli.
As they say, f*** cancer—the cancer none of us even knew he had until a vet visit yesterday morning.
Eli was a Golden retriever, an irrepressible ball of fur who joined our household on July 12, 2017, seven months after we lost our black Lab, Remy—a loss that affected me so deeply that I thought I’d never again let another dog steal my heart. (I was wrong.)
Eli was special in a thousand ways, but one of the most obvious was that he had no tail. None at all, not even a stubby one. I was always quick to tell people that he had been born that way—it hadn’t been slammed in a door, or, worse, intentionally docked—and that Will had gotten him for half-price because of it. We already had a five-year-old bobtail cat, Roman, so we figured Eli was meant to be ours.
Will was still living at home with us for the first year that he was Eli’s person. Tony and I both let that crazy puppy charge right into our hearts, too, but he was Will’s best friend and constant companion, accompanying him to work from the very beginning. It’s probably remarkable that, in nearly nine years of spending his days hanging out in the archives of a historical society, he destroyed only one historical document, and it wasn’t a really old or irreplaceable one…honest. (Also, Will saved the pieces and was able to tape them back together.)
Eli was very highly food-motivated, a fact that probably meant he could have been fairly easily trained to do some practical tricks, like his predecessor, Remy, who knew commands like “shut the door” and “go back” (which meant he should scoot backwards on his butt, a trick Tony taught him to keep him from crowding the door when we were trying to open it). More to the point, he probably could have been trained not to do some less desirable Eli tricks, like helping himself to whatever food was on the counter or table (or in our hands) at the slightest lapse of vigilance on our part.
It didn’t seem to matter if the food he stole was something he probably wouldn’t have even chosen to eat if we had put it in his own dish—if it was something his humans thought was tasty, he was happy to give it a try. As my daughter Annie recalled, “My favorite Eli story was when he ate an entire bowl of refried beans and then looked at us like, WTF did I just eat?”
Then there was the time he wolfed down, in about two seconds, most of a cooling rack full of oatmeal-raisin cookies and had to be rushed to Lewiston to the emergency vet because, as it turns out, raisins are toxic to dogs.
Just a few weeks ago, when Eli was visiting us for an extended period while Will and Rosemary’s apartment got put back together after a plumbing disaster, Tony and I were having leftover pizza for lunch, and, as I texted Donna, “Eli made a sudden lunge and got my second piece, and when I jumped up to try to grab it back (and yes, I would have eaten it if I could have gotten it back before he chomped it up), I knocked the remaining half of my first piece off my plate and he grabbed that, too.”
And I’ll never forget the time he ate half an apple pie (along with the plastic bag it was in).
Eli’s enthusiasm for food was matched only by his enthusiasm for fun. We learned early on that “a tired dog is a good dog,” and that strenuous daily exercise was the only way to wear him out, which meant that his people got strenuous daily exercise, too.
He was my most eager, energetic, and spirited hiking partner. I couldn’t begin to tell you the number of hikes he took with me, but I’m guessing it was in the hundreds. Sometimes we were with Will, or Tony, or both of them, and sometimes with other friends or family members, but very often it was just the two of us.
Although he racked up many longer, more challenging hikes with Will, Eli’s hikes with me were short, most ranging from two to five miles, and we would go along at our own pace, stopping as often as we wanted to sniff as many smells (him) and take as many photos (me) as we wanted. And, of course, from nearly every hike there would be at least one mountaintop selfie.
All of this hiking and photo-taking, and my tendency to overshare on social media, coupled with the fact that I wrote the weekly Locke’s Mills column in the Bethel paper (and now online) throughout Eli’s entire life, made him something of a local celebrity. Many times I would meet other hikers who would exclaim, “Hey, I know this dog! This is the famous Eli!”
After Will, Rosemary, and I said our heartbroken goodbyes at the vet yesterday morning, Will went home and made the poignant social media post that let Eli’s many friends and admirers know what had happened.
Reactions came thick and fast.
“Such a wonderful dog. Eli loved everyone and everyone loved him.”
“He was such a character and wonderful companion, and he had the perfect family in all of you.”
“I loved watching all of his hiking adventures with your mom. You could tell he was the best.”
“You and your parents gave him such a wonderful life. I will really miss the Eli the Wonder Pup pics and stories.”
“I’m so sorry to read about Eli—the best hiking partner in Maine—and his premature exit from the trail. May he find you often in memories of streams, and snow-crusted mountaintops, and warm furballs by the fire.”
Over and over, I heard what Eli had meant to so many people. And I heard what I knew in my heart to be true—that, while his life may have been too short, it was a wonderful life, and we were his perfect family—and it comforted me. Thank you all for loving him, too.
The last thing I felt like doing yesterday afternoon was going for a hike. It’s hard to think about bundling up and hitting the trail alone when your heart is broken. But I knew that both my heart and my head needed it; there was just so long that I could sit around the house crying and reading condolence messages on my phone.
So in the late afternoon I headed to Buck’s Ledge, a place where, for as long as I can remember, I have gone to find peace, comfort, inspiration, and hope…and now, the spirit of a crazy puppy who, in his short life, taught me so many important things, among them:
Always be ready for a new adventure.
Take time to stop and smell the roses—or sample the blackberries—along the way.
On a hot summer hike, never pass up an opportunity for a cooling dip.
There is no bad hiking weather…
…and a little mud never hurt anyone.
The best hikes always end with ice cream.
And always, always, always—if you love someone, let them know.
Eli the Wonder Pup—Gramma’s good, good boy—I hope you always, always, always knew how much you were loved.
I never met Eli, but I can be sure that he was an amazing dog. I know this particular brand of grief, and I know how hard it is. Still, it is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.
So sad, Amy. Eli was a part of all of our families through your writing.