The End of an Era

My sweet Gingi passed away today peacefully in my brother's arms.  She was 16 years old.  I am touched by profound sadness mixed with joy and relief.  I met Gingi nine years ago while volunteering for the Animal Adoption Center in Jackson, WY.  She decided immediately that I was to be her human.  I didn't catch on for more than a month and two trial adoptions later.  I fostered her every single night aside from the trial adoptions.  She would plant herself like a fat furry triangle at my feet and stare at me for hours.  One day, a little boy from Germany came in to the center to walk her...he wanted to take her back to Germany with him.  She planted more firmly than before and he literally had to drag her away from me.  An hour later I was signing the papers that gave my life to her permanently.  She became my constant companion.  We collected treats from bank tellers, went grocery shopping, floated the creek, Canoed the Snake River, walked all the dog-friendly trails in the area, when with me when cross country skiing, camped in the southwest, California, Wyoming, and Idaho.  We visited the beach in Washington.   I never attended a pot luck without her.  She would sit under the children and clean up the crumbs.  She would stand patiently by my side when I was struck momentarily paralyzed by Multiple Sclerosis while walking her in my neighborhood.  Gingi got me out of the house when I was down.  She made me laugh every day with her funny ways.  She was known as Gingerbear, Fuzzy Squeezy Bear, Bearzeldoo, Gingi Wingi, Thing Red...and other names.  One friend noted in her later years that he reminded her of the old lady at the end of the bar smoking cigarettes and drinking a martini.  Gingi was an individual...not a pack dog.  She marched to her own rhythm, did not like to play, and LOVED big handsome boy dogs.  They loved her back.  Six years ago in June, Gingi had to have one of her eyes removed.  Gingi was fine...I was terribly traumatized.  I had to leave for a two week fire dispatching detail on the Inyo National Forest in California...and couldn't bear to leave her...so I drove my own car...and Gingi...the one-eyed heeler with half of her face shaved and stitches poking out of her eye-hole came along with me.  She was an instant hit in the dispatch office.  At one point, deep into a major fire incident, she kept disappearing from my side for hours at a time.  I discovered that she was scoring sandwiches in the other room from the dispatch team.  When I walked in, they looked up guiltily...and there was Gingi...happily munching a roast beef sandwich.  When dispatched to a fire detail we are assigned codes.  On this particular fire I was both an IADP (Initial Attack Dispatcher) and an EDSD (Expanded Dispatch Support Dispatcher).  Gingi was labled the EDMB (Expanded Dispatch Morale Booster).  In the past several years...Gingi has shown her age...she became stiffer, thinner, and slept more.  On several occasions she would tip over and lay motionless...eyes fixed...and then spring to life again.  Just last week she was in my wedding.  She happily wove through the crowd of people, in the midst of everything, searching for snacks.  At times I thought perhaps she had passed a couple of years ago and was now a friendly ghost...like the ones in Harry Potter.  The thought made me happy...because maybe if this was true...she would stay with me forever.  She was a trooper.  A dog with an intense will to live (if dogs have such a thing).  Gingi was meant to be with me.  When my mom first met Ginger...she couldn't believe the intensity with which Ginger watched me.  "Just like a wild dog," my mom said.  I don't know what it was about Ginger.  I think that maybe she had just a touch of magic.  Even though she had the stinkiest breath, didn't play, and was fixated on her mom...people and dogs LOVED her.  The dogs at the dog park followed her around as if she were the Pied Piper.  People I met would often remember her name upon the next meeting, but not mine.  I am certain that memories of Gingi will flood me these next few days...perhaps weeks...and trickle into the rest of my life.  Memories of the scent of her fur, her intense stare, her mannerisms...I will never forget.  I was at work when she moved on from this existence.  Although I am feeling the sorrow of loss, I feel grateful and blessed for not only the many years with her, but also that she passed peacefully in the arms of someone who is gentle and appreciates the unique gift a special pet has to give; someone who loves me...my brother.  I can hardly find the words to describe my relief that he was there for her...and is here for me.  Opening my heart and committing to a relationship with a being that I knew I would outlive was scary at first.  I don't regret one single minute.  Rest in Peace, sweet Gingi.