It's Me, Sara Louise

It was the first Sunday in January 2022. The gentleman I was dating and I decided to take our relationship to the next level — introducing our dogs. 

He had a six-month-old Vizla named Jackson, fresh from New Zealand. We needed to see if Fifty would tolerate the baby kiwi. I hoped the foreign passports and a love of rugby would bond them, but Fifty had grown ornery with age.

The plan was for me to drive the hour north to the gentleman’s place in Columbia County and hope for the best. I grabbed Fifty, his bed, and a Dutch oven filled with pot roast and hopped in the car.

When we arrived, the gentleman bounded out his front door, followed by a very inquisitive and energetic pup. Fifty had met the gentleman before, so that was easy; getting used to this auburn-furred menace was something else. It wasn’t long before Fifty asserted his French attitude and put the young pup in his place (oh, how the tides would change as time went on).  

We took them for a walk down the back garden, which ended with a pond. It being January in New York, it looked frozen. Surely, it was frozen. It had to be frozen. Fifty and Jackson ran onto it, playing and sliding along. 

“It’s frozen, right?” I asked.

“It is, don’t worry.” 

And that’s when we looked over just in time to see Fifty crashing through the ice. 

“Frozen?!” I exclaimed.

The gentleman stared back at me with a shocked look on his face.

“Well, go get him,” I shouted, gesturing to my flailing dog. 

Fifty had found the one spot on the pond’s edge with a warm spring running under it. Of course, he had.

The gentleman pulled Fifty out and dried him off. He was fine, not bothered by his unplanned swim at all. From then on, it was Fifty’s pond. 

As the months went on, Fifty grew happier spending weekends at the gentleman’s place. There was land to run, chickens to chase, Jackson to play with, and a pond to swim in. 

One day, the four of us were out on one of our many walks; I looked over at the pond and asked, “When Fifty goes, can he stay there?”

“What do you mean?”

“His ashes,” I said, “Can we bury his ashes there?” 

The gentleman thought for a moment, looked down at the pond, and then looked back at me. “Yes, yes, we can.”

For months after Fifty passed, his ashes were in an urn placed next to a photo of him in my living room. Sometimes, I thought I should keep him with me. I didn’t know if I was strong enough to really say goodbye. But then I thought about Fifty and how happy he was running free by the pond in Columbia County, and I knew I had to let him go. 

When winter was over and the ground softened, the gentleman sent me a photo. It was a spot by the pond’s edge facing up towards his house. “This is his spot,” he said. 

I ordered a dogwood tree and flew back to New York.

On a cold afternoon in April, the gentleman, Jackson, and I walked down to the pond. We dug a hole (let’s be honest, he dug the hole), opened a bottle of champagne, scattered Fifty’s ashes, planted the dogwood, and said goodbye. 

Cheers to you, my darling Fifty. May you be forever happy resting by your pond.