Kyrie’s been gone for a few weeks and it’s taken until now for me to bring myself to write about her. But if ever there was a being deserving of a tribute, it was Kyrie.
She was one of 6 pups—4 males and 2 females. We knew they were coming and so excited to hear they’d arrived. Our little family hopped in the car to drive to Deerfield and meet the pup who would become the newest member of our tribe.
Little furry bodies, tumbling over one another, we couldn’t believe how small they were! One little one hung in the back as if to say “you guys go on ahead…I’m just gonna grab a little more sleep.” We chose her and named her Kyrie. Marked with a dot of purple nail polish until she was ready to come home, we could spot her at a glance on each of our visits to the crate she shared with her siblings. Cupping her in our palms we’d raise her to our cheek, hearing her quiet mewing breath, inhaling her musky puppy smell.
Kyrie was a wanderer. As her ears perked from floppy to upright, we watched her personality bloom. Curious and funny, she would chase squirrels all her life, stopping short of the tree they ascended, as if, every time, to say “oh yeah, I can’t climb trees.”
Kyrie was a mother, although she never had puppies of her own. She gathered beanie babies and “nested” them behind pillows and in blankets where we’d later find them safely stored away. She “trained” other pups she met, just as she had been trained by Foxie and Lucy, the adult dogs in our neighborhood.
Kyrie was a friend. When one of her people was sick or sad, Kyrie stayed nearby, like Nana the St. Bernard nurse in Peter Pan. Kyrie’s acute awareness of how we were feeling helped us heal faster.
Kyrie was a terrier. Tough and stubborn, happy and game for anything, Kyrie lived to be 17 1/2 years old and was alive every minute.
Two days before Kyrie died she and I were out working in the yard. Her gait had slowed and she was struggling with movement. She sat in the sun while I worked. Suddenly, the sky above us was filled with cranes, whooping and circling, I counted 21. They lingered, their voices a chorus. I could do nothing but listen. Cranes are a sign, I thought. Longevity, good fortune, and happiness, cranes have been recognized as symbols since forever. Kyrie’s hearing long since gone, I wondered if she could sense their mighty presence.
When the time came for Kyrie to go we sat with the vet on a blanket outside in the yard. I sobbed and buried my nose in Kyrie’s fur for the last time, inhaling that musky dog scent that was so familiar and so soothing. She healed me even as she died. The clouds hung low that day. Up above the clouds I could hear the voices of two cranes calling to one another and I like to believe they were calling Kyrie home.