A year ago today

A year ago today, I woke up to find my dog lying on the bedroom floor, dead.

It was the day after Kyle's birthday. We'd gotten home from a family trip to Florida the evening before, on a Wednesday, in time for his weekly band practice. The trip had been relaxing, the journey home less so. My dad had underestimated the time it would take us to get to the airport. We ran through the airport and dashed through the security; sacrificing my water bottle to the TSA in the process. Moments later, an escalator began to gnaw away on the laces of my still-untied shoe, which Kyle had to yank to secure its freedom.

As it turned out, the flight was delayed, and so we sat for an hour in the airport Chili's. We sat and ate stale tortilla chips, washing them down with overpriced drinks.

When we arrived in Columbus, we headed to my mom's house to pick Sollie up. He'd spent the week at her home. We got him into the van; I dropped Kyle and the dog off at our dingy home, a rental, and headed out to Dairy Queen to get an ice cream cake for Kyle's birthday. A few minutes later, Kyle was on the phone. Did your mom mention anything wrong with Sollie? he asked. He's acting sort of strange. I called my mom, who said no. I told Kyle, It might be an ear infection. (He had many an ear infection, thanks to his moisture-loving floppy ears.) I'll bring him to the vet in the morning.

Band practice began, but it didn't last long. Our house suffered a brownout, with half its electricity--including the space in which Kyle practiced--out. So we sat out on the porch that muggy night, Sollie pacing and panting. It felt like a storm was coming, and out of everything he feared--our cat, Rosa; the toaster oven; small children--Sollie feared storms the most. More than once, his terror during a thunderstorm had prompted him to jump the chain-link fence at my mother's home, blind panic driving him across busy streets blocks away. And his worry had only worsened over time. My mom's beagle, Sukha, seemed to provide him some comfort during storms, but it had gotten to the point where even a heavy wind would find him hiding under the closest available person. His trembling would often wake me in the middle of the night, a harbinger of a storm that had not yet arrived.

Shortly before bedtime, around midnight, the power came back on and we decamped to our bedroom. I tried to coax Sollie into our bed--his preferred position was to lie between Kyle and I, his lanky limbs splayed for optimal bed-hogging--but he refused to stay there for long, instead opting for the floor.

In retrospect, I should have known that something was horribly, terribly wrong. Instead, I set my alarm for 7 a.m., when the vet would be open for business.

When I woke that morning, his body was stiff, his torso swollen. We would later learn he had died of bloat, his stomach flipped and twisted inside of him, lack of oxygen slowly killing the organ tissue and, by extension, him.

Sollie died a year ago today and I still am overwhelmed with grief and guilt. I wish I'd known about bloat, which can kill dogs that are, by all appearances, healthy. I wish I'd known that he was seriously ill. I wish that he could have been in bed with us, instead of alone on a hardwood floor.

Sollie loved snuggling. He loved sitting next to me on the couch, his heavy head draped on my shoulder. He loved bedtime--though he usually waited for me before heading up to bed, if I stayed up too late, he'd sigh and head up on his own. He loved walks. He loved the tortilla chips guests at our house parties would smuggle to him. He loved cottage cheese--the sound of a plastic container was enough to bring him running to the kitchen. He loved ear rubs, and would let out a low moan if one was done just right. He loved plush toys with a squeaker inside, and would squeak them on end, to Kyle's annoyance and my amusement. He had a creepy smile that he only showed when he was really excited to see someone. (The first time I saw it, I thought he was going to attack me.) Though he had a reputation for impeccable manners--one of his many nicknames was Mr. Perfect--in the last year, he'd taken to greeting me when I came home by jumping up to put his paws on my shoulders before giving my face one great big lick.

I wasn't Sollie's original owner. Credit for his good manners and training goes to my friend Nate, his original owner and my roommate during my days in San Diego. It was that Sollie--who had playfully gnawed on my ears with his sharp puppy teeth when he was younger--became my greatest source of comfort as I spiraled into depression and loneliness out on the West Coast. Even when I headed back home, to Ohio, Sollie was there, a bony, non-stuffed animal for me to snuggle with. As cheesy as it is to say, he never failed to live up to his name, Solace. But for all the comfort he gave me through the years, I'm left feeling like I never gave him comfort when he needed it most.

A year ago today, I woke up to find my dog lying on the bedroom floor, dead. I miss him so much.