I've been on a bit of a hiatus, didcha notice? And I'm still on one a bit. I'm certainly disconnected from the passion that has been the hallmark of my inner blog. I'm distracted that's for sure. My friend Susie Bright's dad, Bill, died recently and I have been remembering my own father's death 10 years ago.
And a woman whom I can't really call a friend, died in a car crash while visiting her family in the midwest. But she is someone who we all just took for granted in what is loosely called the 'animal rescue community'.
Kate Heike had prepared her basement specially for the arrival of a dog with a newborn litter of pups which had been found in someone's backyard high in the Oakland hills. I know this because I crawled around in this beautifully constructed den in the darkness of an overgrown ivy bush which the mother dog had painstakingly worn and worked into an immaculate bed for her pups. The mamma
dog had to be pulled out of the den on a snare and she had bitten at it in a frenzy and she watched helplessly while we carefully loaded her precious cargo into a crate to transport to the safety and warmth of Kate's house. The mother dog bled from the mouth, eyes pleading and flashing anger all at once. In the dim light in the den, on my hands and knees, I reached into every crevice to make sure we left no newborn behind.
Weeks later, the pups were weaned and ready for new homes, and the mother whom we had not been sure of became a companion to a new guardian taking her forever off the hills.
Kate had looked a little shellshocked when Karen and I arrived with this torn and damaged mama dog and her tiny pups. But had borne it with the look of calm acceptance that I remember as pure Kate Heike. A little smile flitted across her face alternating with a deepening furrow across her brow as it dawned on her just how much chaos and puppy poop she had just allowed to take over the whole bottom floor of her house. Karen and I left - and gave each other a high five before heading to Celia's for Margaritas. 'Good save' we congratulated each other, but the grin on my face was as much about how Kate had just relieved us of a burden neither one of us wanted to take on.
She is missed.
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