They know pain and cold.
But they do not know Death.
They know absence.
The day after my Mom died, Nehi grabbed her cardigan, dragged it onto the bed and snuggled close to it.
She did not understand Death but she knew her daily playtime buddy was gone.
I bought my house in February 2009, mostly so Mom would have a house after a whole life of always moving, being asked to leave, constantly packing and having to find someplace new. We had always had cats because they were easier to pack up and skeddadle on a moment's notice, which was the case for most of my life. We always seemed to get cats in pairs because Mom believed two cats were no more work than one and they would keep each other company which was important. Sometimes we had more, and we almost always lied about how many cats we did have to whatever landlord was asking. It probably was not the reason we color matched our cats but it certainly made it easier to pass off a second grey cat as just a second sighting of the same grey cat.
I loved all the cats we had and over the years we had a lot, but I always wanted a dog.
When I was about ten I got one. I do not remember where he came from, but I remembered my grandmother telling a story about my uncle's dog named October who he called Tober, so I named my golden retriever mix August and called him Gus.
I did not have him long, and one day he was just gone. My grandmother told me he had gone off to live with two guys on a farm but in the decades since I have come to doubt the veracity of this claim.
So when I bought my very first house, while it was not what I wanted, and not the ideal or dream buying your first home should be, I decided that a permanent home meant I could get a dog so I did. When I went to the pound to look all the puppies were in one section. Some were little mates. One was using his teeth to climb the chain link, and bunch were rolley-polleys around the area, milling around, one was snapping at anyone who came near.
And then there was Nehi. Nehi just sat in the middle, looking around, just as chill as could be. I knew right then that she was the one for me. As an often stressed, always anxious, freaked out as a default, I instinctively knew I could use a little chill in my life.
She was not chill.
She was immediately nicknamed the Wee Demon. She ate remotes, DVDs, she destroyed the imagined enemies in pillows and comforters and books. She stole cups of sweet tea off the table. As well as McDonald's cheeseburgers still in the wrapper. She had to always be watched, she got into everything, and she was the joy of my life.
For the next 11 years she was my best friend, and companion in every possible sensen of the word. When Mom died she very thoughtfully ate my cell phone. She travelled cross-country with me the last summer of my MA in Santa Fe. She ate rocks, and a pillow at our rental house. She also demanded excessive amounts of jerky to appease her on hour eleven of our cross country drives. She made sure that while we were always alone, I was never lonely. During my PhD program she made sure I didn't study too hard, regularly coming into my office with a woobie for necessary play breaks and scritches.
She is the reason I did not kill myself when I was told I had to throw out the first complete dissertation. She is the reason I got healthy with regular walks then runs. She is the reason I felt safe moving so far away from anything I'd know and living on my own.
My girl has been through a lot. When she was little she got her dew claws caught in her crate and tore them so we removed them. She tore her ACL, and not a week after she was healed from that the stress meant put on the other one meant she tore that too. She had to have meniscus surgery. She got a tumor in a back nail and had to have her toe removed. One summer of dissertating she learned that bringing rocks into the house, tossing them out in the air was one sure way to get my attention, and accidentally swallowed some and needed stomach surgery. Once she saw a cat disappear through rose bushes, and dragged me halfway through like a cartoon before I stopped her. We bled all over the truck and looked like a horror show by the time we got to the vet.
While I made frequent jokes about the cable channels she could pick up, and may have made a Jurassic Park reference or a hundred, and hated seeing her in pain, she weathered it all like a champ, never losing her friendly spirit or sassy personality.
She never learned to play fetch. Instead her favorite game was "look at how cute this toy looks in my mouth...NO DON'T TOUCH IT." She always has to have just the RIGHT toy, often digging through her toy basket to find just the one she wants. Woobies, sadly, do not last long, as Nehi's favorite thing is to eviscerate them as quickly as possible and then carry around their empty carcasses. I still have the very first toy I bought her the week I got her, a now very sad piece of pink cloth that was a stuffed bear once upon a time.
She gets apoplectic at the signs we're going on a walk, and until the last year loved the run like the wind, all stretched out.
She hogs the bed and the couch, so much so that two years ago I specifically bought a new couch that was eight feet long and could fit us both. Well, her stretched out at 6' and me taking up a very small corner. I have regretted that purchase ever since, because until recently, she chose sleeping stretched out on her couch rather than snuggled with mee ach night, and I missed that.
She is a shameless beggar who will drool a small lake waiting for you to make the right decision and share your food. While she is partial to things that cruch (carrots, chips, popcorn) she loves all kinds of odd things, from hot dogs to cucumbers. I had to teach her "leave it" really quickly or else no food was safe, no matter where you put it.
She loves me in ways that have no bounds. She drags vet techs through doors, and probably would through walls like Marmaduke, when making her way back to me. She is begrudging in her kisses, but always greets me with them when I get home. She's not super affectionate, but at night her favorite spot is snuggled as close as she can get to me, inside my skin would be preferable. She likes to throw her head back at me, and she's clocked me more than once, coming close to breaking my nose. She's also got a strong right hook when she's trying to get your attention and I have the black eye pictures to prove it.
She has only ever had two speeds- running around in circles at full speed and flopped over asleep. Even at eleven she still mostly resembles a cranky toddler or drama queen on most days.
For eleven years, my entire life has revolved around her. When we get up, home we start our day, how I set my work schedule, vacations (or lack there of), travel, where we lived, how we lived. I took the job I did mainly because I told her all through the PhD, on days when my temper was short, or we didn't play enough, or missed a walk, that one day Iwould buy her a house with a yard and grass.
And so I did.
But she's only had a year to appreciate that promise.
She has aggressive cancer and the oncologist says we have less than four months.
We may not even have that. So every day has become a series of moments that I wonder if they are the last time she'll tilt her head, sassy dance, fuss at me, snuggle next to me on the couch, or velcro to me in bed. I wonder who will bark at the racists across the street, eat my pizza crusts and burnt popcorn. Who will sass me to stop working and remind me to play?
Every day now is a cascade of saying goodbye. Trying to seize each image, each action, and freeze them in my mind.
But I know it's no good. One thing I have in common with her is our sense of time. I've never experienced it like I think other people do. Mom dies nine years ago and it both seems like she was just here and like she never was.
When I leave for work, Nehi does not know when I'll come back. I wonder if SHE wonders if I'll ever come back. I wonder if the sheer joy that I'll return to her is the reason she coats my face in kisses. Every time I pull out with my truck and see her face in the window I think of this:
I keep trying to prepare myself for what life without her will be like and other than causing me to sob uncontrollably, I can't get past surface details. I could roll up all the rugs that I bought to protect Nehi's bad hips from her skidding around corners on hard wood floors. My teaching schedule won't be dictated by "Nehi can only be home alone for six hours." I'll have to cancel the pet insurance auto-deduct. But the silly details are as far as I can get. What life actually looks like without her is unthinkable. Inconceivable.
I have no idea what I will do. She too will feel like she was always here and always gone.
And while every single photo I've ever taken of us in eleven years is me adoring her and her pointedly ignoring me, I know she loves me. I'm working hard to make sure she is even more spoiled than she ever was. She gets the good wet food. Cheesey snacks a Twitter friend sent. Extra cucumber skins. All the burnt popcorn and pizza crusts she can eat.
I go back to work soon and Nehi's paw from surgery is almost healed, so we'll go back to our normal routine of walkies, and work, and woobies. While I know this is all for the better, that she's less stressed with routine, and happier when she has walks, I also know that time will pass faster when we return to our toutine, and we already have so little left. I don't want to miss any of it, but know it is inevitable that I will.
My focus is on keeping her happy, and making sure that we say goodbye before she's in pain. Because dogs know pain, and she's had enough through her surgeries and misadventures, so I'll spare her all I can.
But dogs do not know Death. But I can't help but hope that maybe Death knows doggos, and comes to get them, knowing how special they are, how precious, how loved. Nehi deserves all the good things.
While dogs do not know Death I do. And loss. And pain. And absence. And that soon, very soon, I will know them all at once, buried with it, drowned.
And this time, there will be no best friend to get me through. I will be on my own. And I just don't know how I'm going to do that.
But for now, more of this please, as much as I can get, for as long as I can get it. 
I love you, Nehi. Now and forever.
