In 2016 my husband and I went to the ANNA Shelter, a shelter for dogs and cats, to look at the dogs. Lou stopped to go to the bathroom and told me to go in and look around. I looked at the cages with dogs of all sizes inside. I stopped at a cage with a black dog with white on her paws, a strip of white stretching up from her nose, and white on her neck. I read the paper outside her cage saying her name was Esther and she was two years old. All the dogs in the shelter began barking except for Esther. It was like God whispered to me saying, “This is the dog for you.” I knew she had to be mine.
Lou came out of the bathroom. “Are you ready to look at the dogs?”
I pointed at Esther. “I want this dog.”
“But we haven’t gotten a chance to look at the other dogs,” he said.
“I don’t need to look. I must have this dog. Let’s see if we can take her in a room and hold her,” I said.
Lou reluctantly agreed. We took her in a room and I held her. I fell in love with her right away. When we brought her home that day, she clung to me. She didn’t want anything to do with Lou. Over several weeks Esther slowly started coming to him. In time she came to him easily, snuggling up on his chest. When Lou went down to watch TV in his mancave, Esther snuggled up on my lap as I stroked her ears and back. After a while she would go down and spend time with Lou.
Not too long after we got Esther, I had surgery on a torn tendon in my ankle. I was confined to the couch and used a walker to get around. Esther lay beside me and refused to leave my side. Lou had to pick her up and carry her outside to go potty, and he had to feed her on the couch. Through the years we had her I went through a bilateral mastectomy, hysterectomy, and back surgery. For each surgery she stayed at my side giving me comfort as I recovered.
Esther became more than just a dog; she became a comfort for surgeries and mental illness, and she became our baby, our child. Every time I got depressed and cried, Esther laid her head on my chest and looked up into my eyes. I’d bury my head in her fur and pet her. Her soft fur and head against my chest warmed my soul and brought light into my darkness. She knew what I needed and she gave it to me unconditionally.
She had her own anxiety. She didn’t like to be left alone while Lou and I worked. She made a mess out of the house. We had to put her in a crate while we were gone. The crate became her place of comfort. When Lou yelled at the Steelers game on the television, she retreated to her crate and she also went there when she got in trouble. She would even take her food there to eat it.
Esther barely ever barked. When she did, we were shocked. She was a very quiet dog. We knew where she was by the sound of her nails clicking on the floor and the jingle of her tags on her collar. She loved company. When people came to visit, she went up to them for attention. If we had more than one person visiting, she would go from lap to lap. She loved everyone except the mailman. When I took her for walks, she let the neighborhood kids pet her.
As she got older, she stopped sitting on my lap as much. She had arthritis in her left front leg. She started lying on the pillow I lay on when I’m resting on the couch. She would take up my whole pillow. So, I would gently rest my head on her and she was content. When my sister gave us a couch with back cushions you can move around, Esther crawled in between the cushions and the only thing you could see was her head. I would reach back and pet her.
Several months ago, I noticed a lump on her leg that was getting bigger. We took her to the vet and had it removed, but they couldn’t get it all because some of it was in her joint. I took care of her through her recovery. The vet said the lump was an aggressive cancer. Not too long after her surgery, another lump formed above the one that was partially removed. By Memorial Day her lump was open and seeping. It smelled bad. I took off from work that Tuesday to take her to the vet. Her leg was infected, leaving a hole that went to the bone. We could have had her leg removed, but the chances of her surviving and recovering were slim, or we could send her over the rainbow bridge. We couldn’t let her suffer.
The vet tech bandaged her leg up and sent her home with us for a few days. We fed her fries, ice cream, spaghetti, and eggs. We hugged her, petted her, and gave her all the love we could before taking her back to the vet on Friday. I held her tightly to my chest as the vet administered the medicine and she drifted away. I laid my head on her head and wept. Tears caressed Lou’s eyes too as he also said his goodbyes.
Now Lou and I both grieve Esther. She gave us endless love for nine and a half years. She gave us comfort. Lou found comfort in her with his illness and while he was home alone while I worked. Now our lives seem empty and sad. Esther will always have a place in our hearts. She was our therapy dog, our companion, our best friend, and our baby.
We are taking each day at time as we grieve Esther’s loss. In time we’ll get another dog, but right now our hearts have to heal. Memories of my baby girl keep me hanging on to the light of recovery.
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