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My Boy Kip
This is my blog entry to memorialize my boy, Kip.
From the first day he arrived at Crow Cottage (see below), back in 2007, he just took over the place and our hearts... completely.
I didn't really want to go over the whole story now. It's too raw. But I wanted to put down, in a smaller way, the bigness of Kip - my collie boy who (and I hate to use this word) died, this past Tuesday, March 1, 2016. (It got longer than I'd planned.)
I believe "we don't die." So maybe I should say he has passed from this life-plane to his next one... somewhere there is no more of his pain.
It was his pain, in the end, that caused his life to end. A life that was so full of love that we were bursting with it every hour of every day here at Crow Cottage. He was our "little boy" but he was a "big fella," as Paul would call him. He was my "angel boy," as I called him every single day, many times over.
He was Emmalee's "big brother, Kip," even though Em was 3 years his senior. They were inseparable, for the most part. One might be in the living room and the other in the Reading Room, but they were always aware of where the other was.
Sitting on the front porch. Watching for invaders, barking loudly if anyone came within reach of the house, or the garden, or even anywhere on the road. Bark! Bark! They were our guardians. At least that's what they thought. Kip was the ring-leader, too. Em just went along with whatever he decided should be done.
They'd go sit down under the bushes on a hot day in summer... always keeping up the vigil... waiting to warn us of any danger approaching!
Inside, he was ever-present... chin on hassock... watching me... telepathically talking to me (oh, yes, he did that regularly). I knew what he was thinking, and he knew my thoughts, as well. We were "sympatico."
When I was composing, he was always there to give any needed advice that he could... all I had to do was look at him and I knew things... things only he could tell me.
Sometimes he'd pretend he was sound asleep, but the slightest sound from me, and his eyes would open up to ask "what?"
Other times he'd be the look-out and Em would nap.
They were a team.
They would use each other for pillows...
Over to the fence to see what's happening...
But always with me.
Close.
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Then, one day, he developed a lump on his leg. We had it x-rayed, and got the preliminary news that it was cancer. Bone cancer. Osteosarcoma, to be exact. Not 100% definite, but most probably. We got a second opinion with our (now new) vet in Marblehead, and he confirmed the original diagnosis with x-rays which he provided to me via email, which was interesting. I saw for myself.
This picture above is the hardest one for me to see, but one I go to over and over because it was him looking at me, as he always did, for answers. It was the last night of his life. The next day, March 1st, was the day he left us. The pain had become so bad for him that he couldn't even step on that left foot at all. Paul had to carry him down the front stairs and back up again to do his business, which he couldn't even do anymore. This all happened so fast this past week that our heads were spinning with decisions to be made, comfort to give, what to do, what to do... but we knew what we had to do. There was no going back and no curing our boy. We knew that going into this chapter -- this awful chapter of our life with Kip.
The next day, his last with us, he was "out of it" most of the long morning while we waited to hear when our new vet was going to come to the house. The phone rang around noon and he was coming...
Things started to get real... fast... and the cold, stark reality that we were about to say goodbye to the best dog that ever lived hit us both like a ton of bricks.
After the agonizing, heart-wrenching deed was done, he was put on the gurney and taken away. If this picture disturbs you, I am sorry. The vet and assistant said I could snap a photo of his face, but I said no. That would be too hard to look at in the future, so this is what I settled for. He's not really in there anymore, it's just a shell, albeit a beautiful fluffy collie shell!
He was gone from Tuesday until Friday after lunchtime. Paul got the call and he went down to the vet's and picked up our Kippie boy and brought him back home again.
And here he'll stay... in what was called the "Reading Room" but is now called
"Kip's Room"
That is my favorite room now. It's where I go...
to be "with" my boy... to talk to him, to ask his sage advice, and to remind him that he is, and will be, my "angel boy," now and forever-more.
Kip Crowell
10 April 2007 ~ 01 March 2016
The Best Dog That Ever Lived
xox
In loving remembrance,
Bex, Paul, and Emmalee
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From the first day he arrived at Crow Cottage (see below), back in 2007, he just took over the place and our hearts... completely.
I didn't really want to go over the whole story now. It's too raw. But I wanted to put down, in a smaller way, the bigness of Kip - my collie boy who (and I hate to use this word) died, this past Tuesday, March 1, 2016. (It got longer than I'd planned.)
I believe "we don't die." So maybe I should say he has passed from this life-plane to his next one... somewhere there is no more of his pain.
It was his pain, in the end, that caused his life to end. A life that was so full of love that we were bursting with it every hour of every day here at Crow Cottage. He was our "little boy" but he was a "big fella," as Paul would call him. He was my "angel boy," as I called him every single day, many times over.
He was Emmalee's "big brother, Kip," even though Em was 3 years his senior. They were inseparable, for the most part. One might be in the living room and the other in the Reading Room, but they were always aware of where the other was.
Sitting on the front porch. Watching for invaders, barking loudly if anyone came within reach of the house, or the garden, or even anywhere on the road. Bark! Bark! They were our guardians. At least that's what they thought. Kip was the ring-leader, too. Em just went along with whatever he decided should be done.
They'd go sit down under the bushes on a hot day in summer... always keeping up the vigil... waiting to warn us of any danger approaching!
Inside, he was ever-present... chin on hassock... watching me... telepathically talking to me (oh, yes, he did that regularly). I knew what he was thinking, and he knew my thoughts, as well. We were "sympatico."
When I was composing, he was always there to give any needed advice that he could... all I had to do was look at him and I knew things... things only he could tell me.
Sometimes he'd pretend he was sound asleep, but the slightest sound from me, and his eyes would open up to ask "what?"
Other times he'd be the look-out and Em would nap.
They were a team.
They would use each other for pillows...
Over to the fence to see what's happening...
But always with me.
Close.
Then, one day, he developed a lump on his leg. We had it x-rayed, and got the preliminary news that it was cancer. Bone cancer. Osteosarcoma, to be exact. Not 100% definite, but most probably. We got a second opinion with our (now new) vet in Marblehead, and he confirmed the original diagnosis with x-rays which he provided to me via email, which was interesting. I saw for myself.
This picture above is the hardest one for me to see, but one I go to over and over because it was him looking at me, as he always did, for answers. It was the last night of his life. The next day, March 1st, was the day he left us. The pain had become so bad for him that he couldn't even step on that left foot at all. Paul had to carry him down the front stairs and back up again to do his business, which he couldn't even do anymore. This all happened so fast this past week that our heads were spinning with decisions to be made, comfort to give, what to do, what to do... but we knew what we had to do. There was no going back and no curing our boy. We knew that going into this chapter -- this awful chapter of our life with Kip.
The next day, his last with us, he was "out of it" most of the long morning while we waited to hear when our new vet was going to come to the house. The phone rang around noon and he was coming...
Things started to get real... fast... and the cold, stark reality that we were about to say goodbye to the best dog that ever lived hit us both like a ton of bricks.
After the agonizing, heart-wrenching deed was done, he was put on the gurney and taken away. If this picture disturbs you, I am sorry. The vet and assistant said I could snap a photo of his face, but I said no. That would be too hard to look at in the future, so this is what I settled for. He's not really in there anymore, it's just a shell, albeit a beautiful fluffy collie shell!
He was gone from Tuesday until Friday after lunchtime. Paul got the call and he went down to the vet's and picked up our Kippie boy and brought him back home again.
And here he'll stay... in what was called the "Reading Room" but is now called
That is my favorite room now. It's where I go...
to be "with" my boy... to talk to him, to ask his sage advice, and to remind him that he is, and will be, my "angel boy," now and forever-more.
10 April 2007 ~ 01 March 2016
The Best Dog That Ever Lived
xox
In loving remembrance,
Bex, Paul, and Emmalee
Kip
(by Sheila "Sweet Pea" Morgan, Yorkshire, England)
Kip..... Our Darling Boy
Gone from Us
Far too Early..
Far too Soon.
What Love You gave Us
What Joy
Your Sweet Face
Your Sweet Nature
Your Soft Sweet Fur....
How we loved to bury our human faces
In your long soft doggy fur
How we loved to hug
Your strong but gentle body
When often curled up together
In your favourite places
Maybe Sofa or Maybe Bed.
Your walks partaken with your Friends
So anticipated and so enjoyed.
All these things and more remembered
With So Much Love
Always and Forevermore.
We Love You Kip.
Paul...Rebecca...Em
10 April 2007 ~ 01 March 2016
I think I could turn and live with animals...
They are so placid and self-contained,
I stand and look at them sometimes half the day long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied... not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth.
~ [Walt Whitman, from "Leaves of Grass, No. 32"] ~
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