Life is not always pretty nor is it always fun. Even in the times when life hurts there can be beauty and peace that not only excuses the pain but justifies it and demonstrates its reason, for without the pain of loss, we cannot truly recognize the fullness of joy. The night of Saturday, August 30th, began such a time for us. While this family, both immediate and extended, suffered a devastating loss, it is only through that loss that the true value and the wide reach of love is made clear. Through loss and grief, we as people, are reminded how important it is that we never take for granted the gifts that are laid upon us.

The loss of which I am speaking is the passing of our ten year old boxer bitch officially named, “Cinnamon Pawprint Del Sol” but whom those of us among the few and honored have the pleasure of knowing by both her call name and disposition, “Sunny”. There are some who would scoff at the importance and worthiness of an un-pointed dog without obedience awards, special training or other significant merit to her name. Indeed, my first boxer was not only an AKC champion but an accomplished working dog with a well-documented academic transcript. Sunny came into our lives with a predetermined agenda, first to show, and then breed back to Jake. Only no one took the time to explain that to Sunny, or to Mother Nature.

Sunny came to us a solo traveler. Delivered to us from the cargo hold of the “Friendly Skies” that departed “Sunny Florida” and landed in “Sunny California”. With those credentials it seemed so ideal that we should name her something that reflected her geography. Little did we know that it would turn out to be more than just geography but also her personal philosophy, her credo and her destiny. There was never a day that went by, when the sun pierced a cloud near her that she did not find a way to lay in the golden pool that resulted and soak up some rays. Eventually, we would come to realize that she did more with that resource than just lay in it. She collected it and dispersed it with everyone she greeted, everyone she touched, like some happy little solar battery of joy.

The list of her fans is exhausting. She was a thief of hearts in every borough she visited, even charming away an alien from Roswell, New Mexico. She was charismatic. So much that we eventually came to call her the ambassador of Boxers. At the top of the chart for her stories, which have become legend, is the conversion of my Godmother, Diane from “dog aloof” to bona fide officer in the Sunny fan club.

That transformation occurred during one of Sunny’s roadtrips. We had driven to Arizona to visit my god-parents only to find that Diane had come down with Valley Fever. As my Godfather, my family and I prepared to head out for dinner, Diane was forced to beg off miserably and remain behind in her bed. As it was also common knowledge that Diane was no fan of dogs, we opted to leave Sunny in her crate at the house where we were certain she would be both comfortable, and would not bother her host.

Upon our return from dinner, not only did we find that Sunny had quietly won Diane over with her soft and gentle demeanor, but she had somehow convinced her to throw wide the crate doors and give her the run of the house. It was a complete shock to all of us that we found the two of them warmly snuggled up comforting each other right there in Diane’s bed.

Early in Sunny’s life, while living in the shadow of the brilliant Search and Rescue dog and AKC champion, Jake, Sunny developed the reputation for being endearingly stupid. Sunny’s behavior was rife with instances of her clumsiness and absent intellect. She was known for tossing toys high into the air only to have them fall straight back down onto her head as she desperately looked around searching for where they had gone. Watching her happily chase butterfly shadows on the beach completely oblivious to what was causing them has always been one of my fondest roadtrip memories. Now, in hindsight, I am forced to wonder if she had not just been demonstrating her own brilliance as she gaily played the fool breaking through all our defenses and enticing us into loving her more deeply than we had ever known we could.

Sunny could not talk but she clearly could speak. Her eyes, her expressive stubby little rudder of a tail, her soft caring hugs, her gentle almost apologetic kisses, and her warm weight laying against you, all spoke volumes to everyone around her. Most of all, her persistent soft gaze, which seemed to reach across a room and caress you had more than just the capacity of speech. She was telepathic and could reach right into your heart to tell you some important message.

Sunny was polite. She would sit and wait patiently for permission to approach her dinner, long after the food had been delivered. A practice she had never been trained to do. Speaking of patience, she had plenty. She could sit for hours on end, staring at you lovingly until you noticed her and then with a perfectly timed purposeful glance at her water bowl you knew, without a doubt, what you had just been asked to provide.

Aside from the sunshine that Sunny spread everywhere in her life, she was also the cause for a great deal of singing. From the song we sang on her first day, “Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street” to Bobby Hepp’s “Sonny”, to the Bill Withers song above, to just about every other song with the word sunshine in it. Sunny did not sing, she knew no lyrics, but let me assure you she was responsible for music around her just as if it came from her own floppy jowls.

I could wax long and painfully over all the wonderful moments of Sunny’s life, now all of it passing much much much too quickly into the rear view mirror. I am so thankful that my wife, Deanna, perhaps the one person who can claim to suffer a bigger hole left by Sunny’s absence than my own, suggested and arranged to take Sunny along with us on a recent weekend trip to Mendocino. She organized the trip to give Sunny a full weekend of ‘alone time’ with us. It was time that Sunny clearly enjoyed. We stayed in a lovely cabin in a quiet isolated Mendocino valley. For those few days, Sunny’s greying face and aging body seemed to give back the years. Her step was a little lighter and her tail wagged a little faster, though it had never lacked in that regard. The time we three spent was so wonderful that we foolishly thought we could return and replay that script several times in the coming months as a prologue to moving there once and for all. Sadly and joyfully, we did not and could not know that it would be Sunny’s last road trip.

On Saturday, Sunny rose with her protégé, Rosie and me according to her usual weekend schedule. There was one addition to the routine, a houseguest, which only made life more interesting. Sunny and Rosie stayed close as the houseguest socialized with Deanna and Phillip. Eventually, Deanna noticed that Sunny, though still amiable and certainly sweet, appeared in distress. Upon further investigation it was clear that dear Sunny was in pretty bad shape. Deanna and I bundled her up and drove to the emergency vet where the tests would eventually tell us that a recent benign tumor had not been a “near miss” at all. It instead had been a “red herring”. We had squandered important quality weeks nursing her back from surgery while a cruel insidious cancer was eating away at one of her internal organs. What we had now was an open wound bleeding into her abdomen and even surgery would only buy her a few more months at best with most of that in recovery from the surgery. One thing the emergency vet told us that just did not sit right, was that her heart was so very small. This chewed at me and sat in the back of my mind as we sorted through all the other information that lead us inexorably to the saddest of decisions.

Suddenly, painfully, like a hurricane we found that we had just passed through the eye of a terrible storm and Sunny would not survive. There was nothing we could do to return all the love Sunny had given us other than to feebly excuse her from the pain that was just beginning to devour her. A sacrifice was necessary and this time, we would have to bear it entirely without her.

Sunny’s other people, Phillip and Niko, were called and rushed to Sunny’s side. When they arrived, Sunny’s spirits lifted even though the battle she was losing raged inside her. She mustered one last tail wagging greeting from the “quiet room” floor where she lay before settling back down to wait patiently, as always, for her family to do what she could not do for herself.

As Sunny’s consciousness faded, and she passed peacefully into the next world, where, as Niko and Will Rogers have both observed, we would prefer to go if dogs are not allowed in heaven, our lives became a blur of wave after wave of sadness that has outstripped any grief I have ever felt. Such is the hole left by Sunny’s passing. Her empty chair, her vacant bed, her sun filled corner of the deck, all reopen the wound and bring forth the sorrowful flood time and time again. Even lying in bed at night brings us grief and pain as we find the absence of Sunny’s breathing, the silence of the night unsplit by her soft snoring, wakes us up to remind us that we are alone.

There, lying in the dark, unarmed and vulnerable to the sadness that flows from the knowledge we will never feel her tender affection silently warming our hearts again; there lying in our bed, finally the mystery that had struck me so strangely as the vet spoke in the emergency room is revealed. The answer is clear. Of course Sunny had a very small heart. She spent her whole life giving it away. Goodbye, “sweet pea,” my “sunspot,”…… and thank you.