Pure Joy by Danielle Steel Page A

acted like a puppy, and two days before he was to leave town and join me in France, Annabelle fell gravely ill in a matter of minutes. There was no warning, no slow winding down to prepare him. She went from fine to critical condition within five minutes, with seizures. He literally flew down the hill with her in his arms, the few blocks to the vet, shocked and panicked. He spent twenty-four hours at the pet hospital with her, never leaving her side, as I got hourly reports from him in France. And much to our relief, she improved enough for him to feelcomfortable leaving. There was no explanation for the seizures, except possibly her age. She appeared to be on the road to recovery. He spent a few more hours with her before he left, fed her, and held her, and he had made me promise that I would check on her through the night by phone from Paris, while he was on the plane, so I could report to him when he arrived. And once again Nature made the decision for us. Literally, as his plane took off from San Francisco, Annabelle went to sleep peacefully and never woke up. He called as soon as the plane touched down on the runway. The vet called to tell me immediately, but I lied to Maxx when he landed and called me. I couldn’t bear telling him news like that over the phone, and it nearly broke my heart to tell him when he got home to the apartment. The loss was devastating. Annabelle had been his shadow and beloved friend for fourteen years. There is no replacing the companions of our childhood.

    Sam’s dog Mia (the chocolate eater) at thirteen

Cassio Alves
    I think too, like losing a person we have loved, that losses bring up other losses in our lives, and remind us of them, and hit us hard. I will never forget how sad Maxx was to lose his boyhood dog. (And Sam when she lost first Mia, and later Chiquita.) Annabelle and Chiquita were probably our sweetest, most loving dogs.
    Maxx grieved Annabelle terribly for the next many months, and finally I gave him the Boston bull puppy thatput balm on his heart and whom he loves dearly. Annabelle will always be the boyhood dog he adored, but I’m happy to see that there is room in his heart for Nancy too.
    Losing a pet can happen peacefully or in a more traumatic way. Some animals (and people) wind down over time, and you see them show all the signs of their age, and where things are headed. And sometimes they seem to be doing so well that they take you by surprise when things take a sudden turn for the worse. If they seem to be deteriorating slowly, you have the benefit of time to prepare you. And sometimes how well they appear can be deceptive. Twice now we have been fooled by unusually spunky old dogs who literally fell apart within hours, which is much harder to adjust to, and traumatic for their owners, who just didn’t see it coming. (Again as can happen with people. My incredibly lively grandmother died almost instantly, while running between appointments and very busy with the joys of life. Although she died at an appropriate age, nearly eighty, her energy level, and how full of life she was, led us to believe she would live forever, and we were stunned by her sudden passing. The same happened with my ex-husband’s grandfather, who lived to be 103 and still had all his faculties, was very sharp, and went to the office every day. He was a remarkable person, and I think we also came to believe he was eternal. But mortality catches up withall of us eventually. Old people and dogs can fool you if they still have a lot of energy and are in good health.)

    Chiquita at fifteen, still smiling!

Samantha Traina
    We experienced that with my daughter Sam’s second dog, Chiquita, two years after she lost Mia. Chiquita was sixteen by then, and full of bounce and energy. I loved watching her trot down the hall when she came to visit me. A vet we took her to guessed her age at eleven or twelve, when she was actually sixteen. Chihuahuas are notoriously long-lived, sometimes until twenty, and