For Barb K, Happy Mother's Day from David and Jen
| Cassie, our much loved friend and companion for nearly five years, crossed over the Rainbow Bridge Monday night when she went into respiratory failure. Her passing followed a four day battle with pneumonia which was likely related to long term respiratory problems that were never definitively diagnosed and were non-responsive to many varied courses of treatment.
Despite her medical problems over the years (including two cancer surgeries), Cassie steadfastly displayed the golden attributes of never complaining, living every moment of her too short life to the fullest, and, most of all, blessing “her” humans with abundant unconditional love. Although Cassie was an “equal opportunity” lover of all the humans in her extended family (or “pack”, if you prefer), she truly adored children – the younger the better! She could hardly restrain herself after she somehow sensed that the grandkids were on their way up here for a visit. When they finally arrived, she greeted them with her highly enthusiastic trademark 290° wags, last clocked at about 500wps (wags per second). She would lean as close as possible to them when she greeted her prodigal “grandpuppies” whom she may not have seen for months. As with most Goldens, Cassie’s “most favorite thing” was doing whatever was going on at the moment. However, a few things were really at the top of her list. One was retrieving her squeaky toy, a soft stuffed green and yellow toy shaped like a shotgun shell. Although she would urge us to play with her and her toy in the house, she was really in her element when in the water. On warm summer days many hours were spent by us and other family members tossing her toy as far out into the lake as we could fling it, Cassie swimming out to retrieve it and then repeating the process again and again. Our throwing arms usually failed us long before Cassie was willing to call it quits. Seven of her favorite toys (all identical) remain piled on a chair near our basement walkout door – some taped up and worn. Cassie would pull out these toys one at a time until she found one that had a squeaker mechanism that still worked when she chewed on it. She would often place her whole collection in different strategic locations throughout the house. I think we will leave her toys on the chair for now. One of her other most favorite things was the daily walks with me, her dad. She always anticipated when a walk was about to commence by raising her ears and raising her front legs as if to say, “I’m ready, stop dilly-dallying.” After a while I could not even communicate my plans for a walk by spelling out key words since Cassie often was able to figure out my intentions after just one or two letters were verbalized. Perhaps sign language would have helped, but I doubt it – Cassie was an extremely quick study. Our walks generally followed the same route – there’s little choice when you literally live in the sticks. Despite that limitation, Cassie found something new and interesting nearly every day – a new scent (“a dead fish, mmm, sweet!”) or encounters with small critters. I would always talk to her during our walks, mostly nonsense things or telling her what a sweet girl she was. I expect that I will continue to talk to her while walking, her physical absence notwithstanding. Many theologians say that only people have souls – which, of course, is utter rubbish. Cassie has a soul more pure, joyful and warm than most humans. She has and will continue to enrich our lives tenfold over what we were able to give to her. We miss her desperately, but know that her spirit will be with us now in whatever lies ahead. Many thanks to all the members of RAGOM, to Connie J. for making such wonderful coats for her second cancer surgery (and thus giving her a speedy recovery), to Tamra who was our original mentor with RAGOM and will lovingly meet Cassie at the Bridge, and to RAGOM boy Jack who found Cassie when she escaped the very first night we had her and enabled us to have five wonderful years with her.
|
||||||||||||
