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I know it's the 4th of July weekend coming up, but we’ll be short on food this week and long on reflections, so bear with me.

The last month of my life has been incredibly challenging. I’ve lost a close aunt, a dear friend and volleyball teammate, and then this weekend, we had to put our sweet 10 year old Newfoundland, Benny, down.

He came into our lives almost a decade ago as a shy, scared rescue puppy who weighed about 35 pounds, and he left on Saturday night as a proud, stubborn, sweet, calm and caring 150 pound gentle giant.

It took years for him to come out of his shell and really connect with us, but it was so rewarding when he did and boy does he leave an impact far greater than his triple digit weight.

He connected with me first, as we had our daily ‘pow wows’ where I would kneel on the top steps of our main level and he would come and plop down, putting his nose to mine and we would just share time together, scratching his ears and belly and booping his nose.

Then, when Aly started working from home about three years ago, Benny became her shadow. He would lay in her office all day to watch her back, he would get up and follow her to different rooms whenever she moved, and he was connected to her hip, physically and emotionally.

Unfortunately, as a 10 year old giant breed dog, his body began to fail him. His daily trips to the park slowly turned into him mostly lying by my wife as she sat on the bench and watched Jett, our other dog, run around. Sure, he would still get his spurts of energy and playfulness, but they were few and far between.

Then it wasn’t just play where his body failed. He struggled to pick his back end off the ground when getting up, especially on the parts of our house that are hardwood floors. Unfortunately, we have a lot of stairs in our house, and at the end of the night, when Aly would go up to bed and I stayed up to watch TV a bit longer, he would walk to the bottom of the stairs and look up. He badly wanted to follow her up there but it was so very challenging for him. He would lay back down and relax for a little bit, but then I would head up. He would stare at the stairs again. You could tell he was asking himself if it was worth the pain.

But, every night, about 10 minutes after I would go up, I would hear his head butt into the door to push it open and he’d come, take his drink from the toilet and then plop down in his favorite corner, but each day the panting got heavier and the staring got longer.

This weekend, he began to stumble, as the constant years of favoring his back legs was starting to wear on his front legs.

Aly came home from the dog park crying and said she thought it was time. We didn’t want to do it, but we didn’t want to push it out either to just count down the days he had to live. Would I have loved more days with him? Of course. I would’ve taken another 1,000 years with him, and that still wouldn’t have been enough. But, even though another day for us would’ve been heaven, it would’ve been hell for him.

We decided to have a vet come out to our house to put him down, and in his final sign to us that he was ready, when I walked the vet and the tech to the back deck where we had a nice blanket set out for him, he tried to get up to greet them like he would’ve done to any other visitors over the last 10 years and he just couldn’t get up. He tried hard three different times to get that last oomph to get his back end up, but eventually, he just let his front legs slide back out in front of him and I think he understood it was his time.

It was the hardest decision we’ve had to make. His mind was there, and he wanted so badly to be with us, but that’s where it wasn’t fair. His mind wanted something his body had betrayed him of.

We were able to cook him a nice ribeye steak and allow him to taste the sweet, sweet treats of some Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and were by his side throughout the whole process. Although it’s been a heavy few days of grieving, there are moments when I am happy. Happy that he is no longer battling his back end, no longer limping around and wincing when jumping down the stairs. Happy that wherever his soul may be, he gets to eat all the food, gets all the ear and belly scratches, and gets to reunite with his big brother Bubba.

But, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been incredibly difficult. With a 150 pound dog, as cliche as it sounds, his presence in the house was gargantuan. I already miss his puddles of drool from the treat he got after getting home from the park every morning, I miss his deep, booming, confident bark that paired so perfectly with Jett’s frenetic, panicked bark. I miss him finding his perfect spot in the corner of our giant L shaped couch (he always loved laying in the corner of things), and I just miss his steady, loud snoring when he lay next to my side of the bed. Even just getting up and moving from one part of the the house to another was momentous with his size. It was always greeted with a “Ohhh look at you Mr. Benjamin!”

Our house physically is 150 pounds lighter, but spiritually, it feels 150,000 tons lighter. Benny was a big boy and a big personality, and there won’t ever be a day where I don’t look back with fondness and happiness that you were our dog, the best dog we could’ve ever asked for. Rest in peace my sweet best friend. Aly and I will never forget you and despite our best efforts every day, I’m not sure you’ll ever truly know how much we loved you.

In honor of Benny, I have just one recipe this week, and it’s as easy as can be.

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STRAWBERRY TOPS

As many strawberries as your dog would like

Cut the tops off the strawberries and feed them to your dog.

Clean up the puddle of drool after the strawberry tops have been consumed.

Hug your dog tight, boop their nose, and give them as much joy as they give us. They deserve it all.

TFD: Well the day came. You’re not waiting at the door anymore, are you? When we get home, you aren’t dancing around our feet in a way that’s somehow unrehearsed, even though you’ve done it 1,000 times. We’re not setting out for walks in the cold or the rain or even the sun on most days. And when crumbs fall on the ground, they stay there.

The day came and the house is about as empty as it feels. We’re barely using the vacuum cleaner at all. In fact, we’re avoiding it just to keep you here a little longer. We’re going through shredded cheese at a snail’s pace and spending more time out of the house than you’ve ever known us to because coming home is just not the same as it was before that day and it won’t be for a very long time.

The day came that we periodically made you promise to never let come, even though we knew that wasn’t realistic. And now it turns out the mess we always complained about was way more fun to live in and the orderly, quiet space we have now is not peaceful in the slightest. And we still brace when the doorbell rings because the silence that follows it is far more deafening than what used to come after. 

The day came and you left. And we hate it, by the way, because we loved you just about as much as you probably thought; more honestly and we will miss you forever.

And yes the day came, but you’re not gone. We feel you everywhere and we see parts of you in all the pieces of our home that we were blatantly mislabeling as imperfections because those are the most perfect parts of where we live now because they show you once lived here too. 

The day came and the days keep coming and we miss you on every single one of them and I don’t think that will ever change. - ‘The Day Came’ by Josie Balka

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