Goodbye, Parka (October 29, 1997 – March 26, 2011)

Goodbye, Parka.

The world seems to be spinning all around us but our world has stopped. We sit in our empty house now and see his bed, his Sherpa bag, the little steps he used to get off the couch or bed, his pictures, his food dish. We woke this morning with no one to walk, no one to give medicine to. We have a pantry full of soups and Vienna sausages bought just for him, a fridge of lunch meat no one else in our house eats. Parka is gone.

Back when he recovered from congestive heart failure, I asked him to tell me when it was time to go. He told us both. For two days he did not eat and wanted nothing to do with food. When a day had gone by and he still had no interest in eating, I took him to the vet. After extensive tests and an ultrasound, we discovered that, not only did Parka have a severe case of pancreatitis, his liver was failing, his kidneys were failing, he had tumors on his adrenal glands, and–worst of all–he had an obstruction in his gallbladder that the vets said looked like cancer, based on where it was and how it had developed.

The prognosis was not good. If it was just pancreatitis and hepatitis, they thought he could get better with a few days in the hospital. If he just had the tumors on his adrenal glands, they could work through that with chemotherapy. But the blockage in the gallbladder meant surgery and, with everything else failing, it was likely he would not survive it.

Parka was in a lot of pain. Even dosed up high on pain medications, he whimpered and couldn’t find a comfortable spot to rest. His eyes had lost their spark on Wednesday, but we had refused to see it until Saturday when they told us the rupture would likely happen in 24 to 48 hours and, when it did, it would more than double the pain he was in at that time.

We said our goodbyes at home and then we said the final goodbyes at a veterinarian’s office.

Our heart’s are broken. Our house is too quiet. We miss him.

A master at making me smile.

Parka was the best of friends. He was more like a brother than a pet or child. He was our kin and shared in everything with us. All he wanted was to be with us. He didn’t care about treats, games, toys, other dogs, or other people. We’re pretty sure he was a “catheist”, believing that cats didn’t actually exist because he would ignore them whenever they were in the vicinity. He simply and utterly wanted to be with us, to love us. He was a blessing beyond blessings.

Our lives were richer because he was in them. He made us better people–at least he did for me. Mike has always been an amazing person. For me, Parka taught acceptance, taught me not to be so much of a perfectionist. He taught me to relax more and live more in the moment. He taught me the importance of sitting quietly by a sunny window without access to email, phones, or television. He taught me the value of going on walks and sniffing the air. He helped me slow down and be happy with the happy family I had been blessed with.

This will likely be my last entry for the Parka Dog Blog. I can’t imagine continuing it at this point, although I guess something could come up that seems related to him–something unexpected but important. We’ll see. For now, all I know is that there is a huge wound centered right in the middle of my heart and I have to trust that it will get better because everyone tells me it will.

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