Losing Henry, Finding Cooper

It came swiftly and out of the blue, losing Henry. It happened over a weekend that was grey and cold. On a November weekend that was so ordinary and uneventful with the exception of what happened to my sweet, crippled hound dog.

I had started to notice while on vacation in Cape Hatteras the week before that something wasn't quite right with Henry. Things were off with his habits and he was not the voraciously hungry dog that I lived with. Then one afternoon I saw that the color of his gums were no longer pink but now yellowed and that his eyes had the same eerie color. And in that moment I knew that he was lost to me. What followed was the longest day of my life spent rushing to various doctors, getting a misdiagnosis and waiting at the VRCC for five hours before my poor dog could be seen and tested. It was nearly midnight when Chris and I got home. He'd had the foresight to go to a liquor store and buy a bottle of whiskey to soothe my nerves and raw emotional state. The pain of knowing my dog was going to die was more than I could stand and I doubled over the kitchen counter sobbing so hard I thought my eyes would burst from their sockets. I drank the whiskey until I was so exhausted from stress and pain that I couldn't stand any longer and went to bed. The next morning I drove to the VRCC and they brought him to me. I took him outside so we could sit in the sunshine, but I could see that his attention was toward the woods and his demise. He wanted to make a cradle in the earth, coil up into a small ball and die. I took him back inside. He was so sick and just wanted to rest and then they told me the news. My dog was dying from end stage liver disease and there was nothing to be done. I drove home and called my friend Kat and she came and sat with me a long time and helped me to accept that he would be leaving. I told Chris and we cried together and decided that Henry should be buried in our back yard. Later that day I called the Vet and they said, "we'll call you if he dies during the night." I said, "that's not acceptable, my dog must be ready to come home immediately." So, we picked him up and brought him home. A dog with end stage liver disease is a sick dog indeed and watching him through the night I knew he was suffering and would have to say goodbye to him the next day. It was a glorious last day with family, friends and neighbors coming to see him one last time and then at four in the afternoon, my vet came and confirmed to me there was nothing to be done. He took one last breath and left us quietly, peacefully. I had been brave and wanted to do the right thing for him but as soon as he was gone - I lost myself - completely. Not since my soul-death in Williamsburg had I felt such incredible, ripping pain. Henry was my connection to all things woods, earth, dog-world. He was my hunter with an incredibly old soul and knowing disposition. Losing him was like losing the connection to the deepest source that lies within us all. I could not go to the woods for a long time after he left me.  

Chris and I took Willa to Mount Vernon that Thanksgiving to spend the holidays with my in laws and Henry's spirit was beside us the entire time. We could feel him and so could Willa. Later that year, in Spring I was working outside on the azalea bushes next to our house and as I bent over, his spirit and the scent of him wafted just under my nose; the hairs stood up on the back of my neck and I began to cry. He was still hanging around the yard and the house. So I would talk to him all the time and let him know I could feel his presence and that we missed him.

Months after Henry died I contacted a woman who communicates with animal spirits and she told me Henry had been with me in various animal forms over many lifetimes. She said he had been a bird, a goat, and most recently a big mountain type cat that lived with me in the woods. And in that moment, my love of woods, dogs and aloneness crystallized and I could see very clearly my most recent life. She said I had lived alone, in the woods and  Henry had been my protector.  She said if I wanted him to come back I needed to pray and visualize what he would look like and I would recognize him by his eyes. 

Three years later, after losing Willa, our other amazing dog. I began to pray for Henry's return. I began to visualize what he would look like. A month after Willa left, the emptiness of dog companionship was  eating at me and so I began to search, not just for one dog but two. I wanted Willa to come back as well but Chris said that Willa had attained dog perfection and would probably not be back. I searched hundreds of dog rescue sights, saw many lovely dogs who needed homes but none of them I recognized. And then one day, out of the blue, I received a phone call from a friend of my mothers about two dogs that had been scheduled to be euthanized in Louisa County but had recently been rescued.  The picture was sent to me and instantly I recognized my dog. Chis saw it too. But the other little dog was not Willa, could not have been Willa because she was already 4 months old and Willa had just died the month before. We could not separate these two dogs, they survived the wilds of Louisa County, had traveled together, lived in the woods, taken care of each other; no they could not be separated. They were obviously related and attached so we brought both of them home. Henry, now Cooper (who I still call Henry on occasion) and Virginia Rose (Ginny).  And he is exactly as I visualized he would be. He is Henry through and through but this time he is free of pain and can run like the wind. He is the happiest dog I've ever known. He will throw down on the grass and roll over making somersaults just because it feels good and because he can. 

What is so amazing to me is that I am not alone in knowing he is Henry. Friends who knew Henry have stopped me when we've walked with Cooper and said, "that's Henry, isn't it?" And I say, "yes, he found his way back to me, he found his way home."