In the clouds

Back-blipped on 17 February 2024

Here is Gus on his holidays in North Uist in 2019, this is my 2000th blip (in order of upload), and the one year anniversary of his passing.  Had there not been so many gaps in my blipping, he would have been my 2000th blip whatever happened.  He was so central to our lives and to this blip journal.  I had thought of uploading this for the day of his anniversary, but although the Blipfoto rules are implemented less stringently than when I started 13+ years ago, the rule is still that the photo should be posted against the day it was taken.  So here it is, nearly 5 years on.  I shall post another photo for 17 February 2024 which stays within the rules.

I've said so much about Gus in the many blips in which he featured, that there's not much more to say that hasn't already been said.  We still miss his gentle, devoted company, but one year on the pain is not so raw, and I can look back fondly at the blips and the photobooks, with just a lump in the throat and a tear in the eye.  We were so lucky to have shared ten years of our lives with him.

I guess every dog owner thinks their dog is particularly special, and maybe Gus was no different in how we felt about him.  Though some of the dog owners we know who knew him have said there was something more to Gus than is usual.  My sister who has had six dogs recognised this, as did our former neighbour Helen who had many dogs in the time we knew her.  My old friend Dr T, who is not given to flights of fancy, came out with something very odd.  He said 'What was Gus, was he just a dog?'  Well yes, he was a dog, he did the things that any male dog does, but there was something about him that transcended the usual doggy behaviours.  There was his appearance in our lives at a time when Caroline was grieving the loss of her Mum, the way in which he found her when she was doing something she never did on her own - going for a walk over Arnside Knott.  She always had the sense that her Mum had somehow sent him to help her at a time when she was feeling bereft.  And from that first meeting, he was utterly devoted to her, and for all the walks he and I had together, if we all three went out together, he wouldn't leave her side.

When we were on North Uist, it was already apparent that he was slowing down and getting arthritic.  Yet he hung on to his life for another three and a half years after that.  Until finally a year ago when we think something ruptured inside, he was obviously in pain, and he was telling me with his intense gaze that it was his time.  The vet had warned us that after death a dog will purge its bowels and bladder.  But Gus didn't do that, he asked me to take him outside, and he purged everything himself, and made himself ready.  He was always so clean.  In death, he was so beautiful, his body relaxed, and he looked like a young dog in his prime, his legs stretched out as if he was running again.  

I shall always love you and miss you, Gussie.  It would be lovely to think that one day in some other place, we shall be reunited forever.