Niko the Wonder Dog turns 4 tommorow. Which means we should probably stop referring to him as “the puppy” – although I am not sure who is going to break the news to Niko. This past summer one of the lake neighbors was telling me how much calmer Niko was this year. I stood there, feet braced; hanging onto his leash with two hands as he tried to tackle someone, and thought “Good God – how bad was he before?”

Here he is lounging on the couch – on his back, head twisted impossibly one way and legs splayed out, completely content.  I am constantly amazed at how much space this dog can take up. I routinely wake up clinging to a small strip along the edge of the bed while he snores on, curled up beside his beloved Greg.  I’m sure he believes it is actually his bed and when he is banished from it he flops with an indignant snort against our closed door.

We learned this summer that he is a little indiscriminate about who he will sleep with. As Carla discovered during their first night at the cabin when she went to brush her teeth and returned to find Niko spooning a snoring Bob.

He has no concept of his pony like size and thinks nothing of hurling himself off the stairs to greet visitors or crawling into your lap for a cuddle. He has this uncanny ability to bring the right shoe to the right person – making the rounds of all the available humans until someone agrees to take him for a walk.

He goes crazy after a bath, running laps around the house, practically upending the couch as he rubs his ears against it.

He loves to have the wind in his face during a car trip, ears flapping in the breeze.

He can smell Tim Horton’s a mile away and eagerly awaits his free Tim Bit. He learned very quickly not to bark at the attendant at Great Canadian Oil Change or he would not be offered a Milkbone treat.

His favorite place on earth is the lake – and all it takes is for Greg to bring a gym bag up from the basement and the dog goes insane – racing around the house, vibrating with excitement. He has been known to scramble into an open car door and wait there patiently for over an hour as the packing proceeds. And when we finally arrive at the cabin – pure joy. Racing down the beach. Chasing squirrels. Begging treats and ear scratches from neighbors. Going fishing. Chasing balls in the water till the human’s arm falls off from throwing.

 He is addicted to lotion – sunscreen, moisturizer,make up. He thinks he has died and gone to heaven when I have a pedicure. He is constantly doing his own version of “twerking” – presenting his butt to be scratched and rubbed.

He is always so happy to see me when I get home and greets me like I have been gone for months: every single time. He has seen me at my worst, in full blown crazy woman meltdown, yet never judged me.  He has licked the tears from my face when I’ve been wracked in anguish.  He has lain down beside me and wrapped his paws around me when the grief made it impossible to get out of bed. He seems content just to be around me, whatever I might be doing.  He will follow me from room to room – watching quietly or flopped over my feet. His constant presence is a comfort and joy. The house is so still and empty when he is away.

And the truly amazing thing is that he makes each of feel we are his special person.

Of all the gifts he has brought to our life, the one I am most grateful for is the unwavering and totally unconditional love he showed Jordan. When I look through the photos on Jordan’s Facebook page I can see by Niko’s body language that he wasn’t always comfortable with some of their adventures. They appear to have walked for miles some days – in blistering heat and in freezing cold. I asked Jordan once how he took care of Niko’s needs on those walks and he replied that he “just asked people for food and water.” The kindness of strangers always astonishes me. Obviously they were able to get beyond first appearances – saw beyond the guy with the shaved head and wild eyes and his scary giant  hound and instead saw only a friendly young man and the dog he adored.

When Jordan died, we learned that dogs could mourn – and the sight of Niko lying on one of Jordan’s shoes or shirts and crying was heart wrenching. He misses him still. Certain sounds and smells will still jolt him alert and send him searching the house and yard for his boy.

The average lifespan of a Goldendoodle is 12 years – the longest is 16. Here’s hoping Niko truly is a wonder dog and manages to set a new record. Happy Birthday Niko – you wonderful 85 pound bundle of hairy dog love.

 There’s a blog I’ve found helpful over the last few months called “What’s Your Grief”. A recent posting on “ambiguous grief” hit particularly close to home.

“There are times in life when someone we love becomes someone we barely recognize.  The person is still physically with us, but psychologically they are gone. There are a range of reasons this can happen.  Some of the most common are things like addiction, dementia, traumatic brain injuries, and mental illness.  If you have never lived through loving someone in such a situation, this can be hard to understand.  The person you love is still there, sometimes they ‘look’ sick, sometimes they don’t.  But regardless of how they look, they do things they would never have done, they say things they would never have said, treat you in ways they never would have treated you, and they are not there for you in ways they previously were. 

Your mom, who always loved and supported you, doesn’t recognize you, understand you or says hurtful things.  You husband, who was always kind and considerate, is now lying and stealing to support an addiction.  You son, who was brilliant and driven, is now struggling with delusions and hallucinations.

These things do not change our love for the person – we still love our mom with dementia, our husband with an opiate addiction, our son with schizophrenia.  But this continued love doesn’t change how deeply we miss the person they used to be, the person we lost.  Though we still have a relationship with the person it has radically changed and we grieve the relationship we used to have.

Things get even more complicated if that loved one dies. Our recent experience with the behaviors and words of the ‘new’ person causes us to question our old memories.  Our ‘ambiguous grief’ feelings may be sadness and yearning, anger and guilt, or a range of other emotions.” 

I’m not sure if “ambiguous” is the right word for it – but I certainly agree that our grief experience feels more complicated and far more difficult to navigate; shaped by our journey with Jordan in the years preceding his death. As a result, guilt and regret have been frequent visitors of late – the chorus of “coulda, woulda shoulda,” has been drowning out everything else, leaving me anxious and unsettled.

Then last Monday night I dreamed of Jordan again.

It came on the tail end of that brief, deep sleep that occurs after you’ve woken at 4 and struggled for an hour or more to get back to sleep – desperate to get more rest before the alarm pulls you from bed. He wasn’t even on my mind – it was work that kept me tossing and turning.

The dream began in what seemed to be a living room. He was on the couch sitting beside Lucas and I could tell they were enjoying each other’s company. His hair was a little long, but his face was clean and his eyes were bright and he looked so healthy and was smiling so beautifully. I smoothed his hair away and cupped his face in both my hands and I could see him so clearly – right down to the freckles on his nose. And I said “I know you, I remember you, I knew you were in there” and I kissed his face over and over.

And then in the next moment, in that surreal kind of time travel that only occurs in dreams, we were in a tunnel of some sort. Like a parkade or an underground walkway. It was filled with people and I realized that Lucas and Jordan had gone on ahead. I came around a corner and there was Jordan – stark naked, lying in a fetal position in the middle of the tunnel while everyone walked around him.

And my immediate reaction, the thought that stayed with me as I came awake, was “Oh – I see. He was always ill. He was always going to get ill. There was nothing I could have done.”

It was such a powerful moment. I was afraid to move, afraid to breathe even, as I lay there trying hard to hang on to the dream in hopes of discerning more meaning from it.

Theresa Caputo, the Long Island Medium, often tells her clients that dreams are our loved ones way of communicating with us. It’s a nice thought isn’t it – that the dream was Jordan reaching out to tell me to forgive myself. All I know is that I’ve been able to breathe a little easier this week.