I love you, Starbuck-A-Roo

Starbuck A Roo 26 Jan 2007 - 26 Jan 2020

Starbuck-A-Roo, the Roo of my heart, the Roo of my soul, was hit by a car. We were headed out to walk the trails, and she and Cricket ran down the trail behind our house with classic insane happy husky joy. At the bottom of our hill, you turn right to go to the main trail system. Autumn and Linden have done it a thousand times. Roo and Cricket at least 100's. But for whatever reason, when I got to the bottom of the hill, their tracks did not point right; they pointed left. Toward the road. Well, it's still a quarter mile to the road, so I wasn't worried. It was pretty cold (-20F), so I figured the princesses had just decided it was too cold for them and run home. So I shouted their names. Cricket came to me. Roo did not. I figured she was on the porch. So Cricket and I walked back up (DL was inside, recovering from a knee pain). We opened the door. DL said he had not seen Roo, but he got dressed and came outside to look with us. Cricket and I headed back out. Again, no tracks to the right, only to the left. We walked back up to the house. The answering machine was blinking.

The man was very kind and compassionate and brought her body back to us. He explained how she had just darted in front of his truck, with no time for him to avoid her. She left us instantly. She didn't suffer. DL retrieved her body while this stranger witnessed my grief and responded with kindness and honesty. I noticed that after he read her tag, which reads "Starbuck (Roo)", he called her "Roo". It was the name she gave herself, and it suited her so well that no-one who knew it called her "Starbuck" anymore. I was touched that a stranger picked up on it.

I held her body. It was still soft and fuzzy, but cold and dusted with snow. Her soffty paws were still sofft and frito-y, but cold. I reminded myself that it was just a shell I was holding. An empty shell that was beautiful only because of what it had once contained. We took her to the vet to be cremated. I told her she was The Best, and that I'd love her forever, and I'd miss her forever, and I'd never forget her. I collapsed on our living room floor.

Cricket displays the same Wisdom at the loss of her sister as Roo did with her Friends at the Denali Center--She loved her very, very, very much, but the time to honor them is while they are alive, but when they are gone, life goes on, and they want us to pursue life. Eat, Cricket says. Sleep, Cricket says. But I'm afraid I'm not as Wise or as Strong as dogs, and I cannot stop crying. I worked from home much of this week, going in only to teach. I lined up both Love and distractions. I cuddled Cricket, bundled up for a daily run at -30, took Cricket to visit MK so we could cuddle her bunch. I vacuumed, I sorted old clothes for donations, I reviewed my lectures for each day's class. And I cried at the wall, I cried at the woodstove, I cried at the couch, I cried into my tea, I sobbed into DL's arms, and I sobbed uncontrollably while Cricket leaned her head into my chest.

I loved Autumn and Linden very dearly, but I had the honor and quiet pleasure of watching them grow old. Roo was on her 13th birthday, which non-husky owners would say is a good run, but which every husky owner knows is a too-soon wrenching of her from our lives. The loss of her physicality hurts the most. She was soooo sofffft and soooo huggable and sooooo loving, and she was almost always at my side. I still slice carrot slices in half and then look down and see only Cricket there. I know that on the whole we have still been blessed, and I am grateful for the 6 years we have had together. I still feel as if I have been punched in the chest, but all of the dog lovers around me (and there are many in Fairbanks!) who have gone through this grief say that the only way through it is through it, and one day, I will smile instead of cry when I think of her.

All of my dogs have been exceptionally sweet, but only one was so overflowing with sweetness and love that she needed to be a therapy dog:


And she had a Heart on her Chest:


And she looooooved each and every one of us!

Roo looooved Autumn:


And Roo looooooved Booger:


And Roo looooooved me:


And Roo looooooooved Cricket:


And Roo loooooooved DL:


And Roo! Loved! Snow!


She smeared her face into it and slid like an otter:


Oh yeah!


Here is a video:

SSsnnnnoooowww!


I comfort myself to think of them reunited:


I loved them so, so much:


This was on the side of Donnelly Dome:


Roo never knew Autumn and Linden as young dogs. She only knew them as elderly ladies. I hope they are running and playing together in the snow, as she never saw in life.


I feel similarly about her Friends at the Denali Center. I'm sure she is very happy to see that her Friends are not in fact bedridden or in wheelchairs, and can run and hike and ski with her!

Well, one regret I don't have to live with, is that I always gave them my all while I had them, I am 100% confident of that. Even if it was past midnight and I was exhausted and had an 8 a.m. class the next day, if she came and sat next to me, I always petted and cuddled her until SHE was done. I never wish I could have loved her more, because I loved her as much as I possibly could.

I texted my pastor about it: "How can I get through the rest of my life without hugging her and holding her soffty paws?"

He replied:
Ahhh well, you hug the memories and carry her forever and ever in your heart and sooner or later find someone else who will need your love. And 90 years from now, which will seem like forever but really will be just a twinkling, when you step into the Country of Light, there will be...

And sometime, ohhh sometime, either when you need it absolutely the most or when thy spirit has settled a bit, there will come a dream, or you'll suddenly feel a wet nose in your hand, or a just Roo's smell in the wind, and you'll smile, knowing that because Love never ends, Roo is always and still and forever with you.

And all the time apart will be as nothing.