death and memory

All things die.

We know that intellectually, but our hearts tell us it is a lie. And maybe both are true. Things die, but, as long as we live, we hold on to the memory.

Some of you will recognize the photograph. It is La Güera, one of the many neighborhood dogs. When I first met her, we were not friends. She would bark at me all abristle whenever I would walk past her house. Barrel-chested and territorial, she was the queen dog of our street. To her, all people and animals were a threat.

That all changed with the arrival of Barco Rubio, my golden boy, in December 2015. For some reason, La Güera took a maternal shine to him. He looked like the kind of youth who needed a stern maternal paw. And she provided it.

She taught him to sort through the garbage stack on the street corner to find the choice bits. (Barco never got the knack; he would swallow whole small bags of garbage -- plastic bag and all.) Or how to chase down and dispatch the fastest of chickens.

No matter how I would admonish him, he would ignore my rules in favor of La Güera's. After all, she was a cool dog nanny and I was nothing more than a fascist human trying to crush his dog-ness.

Whenever Barco was out of the house, he was with her. As time went on, Barco would outgrew her in size, but she was always the alpha in the relationship. She would accompany us on our walks -- no matter how far we went.

I started to think of her as my secondary dog. She would not let other animals or people (especially children, who she detested) get near the three of us. She was not a sharer.)

The only time she ever showed fear was during thunderstorms. She would run to my house and hide behind the propane tank. That was when Barco's gregariousness would blossom. He would coax her out and they would play. He eventually taught her that thunder, fireworks, and gun shots were not to be feared; they were to be celebrated as just another part of life.

I shot the photograph in June 2016. I had no idea that in four short months Barco would be dead. When he died, I suspected that La Güera would revert to type. After all, Barco was her charge, not me.

That did not happen. Every time I walked past her house, she would accompany me wherever I was headed. Every night she was at my front door for a slice of pepperoni. And whenever I would drive up to the house, she was there to greet me.

About two months ago, she stopped appearing at my door. I should have known something was wrong. And it was.

While preparing to go to the airport on my last trip to Oregon, I thought I saw her under her owner's pickup. But she looked misshapen. I walked over to see her, thinking she would jump up and greet me. She didn't.

Her stomach was horribly distended and I could see her ribs and spine. She looked up at me with barely a wisp of her old spirit in her eyes.

I asked my neighbors what was wrong. They had taken her to the veterinarian and were treating her with medication, but she had continued to worsen. They told me she had been under the pickup for days.

I then felt a nudge on my right hand. It was La Güera. She had managed to struggle to her feet and was trying to induce me to pet her. I did.

My walk back to the house was not a happy one. Barco's nanny did not have much life left to live.

When I started setting out my luggage, there was La Güera sitting on my front porch expectedly waiting for a slice of pepperoni. She could barely choke it down.

I hugged her very carefully and walked her back home to talk with my neighbors about what needed to be done.

On my return last week, my first stop was my neighbors' house. La Güera's absence hung in the air. After my talk with them before I left, they took her to the veterinarian just after my car had pulled way on its way to the airport.

So, like all things, La Güera has died. But, as long as I live, I will remember her and Barco frolicking as thunder rolls in the background.

Because she knew how to live. And catch chickens.