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| Photo copyright Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. |
Two years already. Two years since my personal guard dog left us, taken too soon by the same cancer that took his sister the year before.
The photo is of Raven in his last winter with us, 2018-2019, accompanying me back to the house from a trip up to the gate to lock it for the evening, already ill and tiring easily, yet joyous enough to romp through the snow. Back when we had the gallery, he would wait faithfully every day, and every time I locked up to walk up to the restroom, he would escort me there and back. It took several months, though, to get him home and safe.
Like She-Wolf, who was either half-sister or cousin, but clearly related, he had been abandoned as a pup, left to starve. He learned to fend for himself, but it did metabolic damage. He gained weight; She-Wolf became diabetic and lost it. In his case, he gained enough that it disguised the tumor growing in his abdomen for far too long, until it was too late to do anything about it.
He came by his name honestly. I was still struggling with what to call him, some weeks after he first began visiting us on the daily; we already had one "Wolf," and "Bear" didn't seem right. One day, he was lying on the plank threshold outside the door, paws just on the sill, staring n at me. It was a cloudy, stormy day not unlike today, and when I went to the door, I noticed a raven perched on the skeletal tree outside the low wall of the building. The dog kept looking at the bird, then at me, as though trying to tell me something. I looked at the raven, and it screeched and cawed and cackled, clearly mocking me for my thick-headedness. Finally, after looking between them a few times, I said, "Is your name Raven? Is that what you're trying to tell me?"
Cue the cackling peals of laughter from the bird, haw-hawing himself nearly off the branch with mirth. Raven looked at the bird, then smiled at me, and crossed his paws with a look of pure self-satisfaction, so Raven he was, forevermore.
He was theirs and they were his, no question. he was wild, still half-feral, and he was always getting into trouble, which usually meant an injury of some sort. Twice he got out onto the highway and got hit, and survived both well enough to hide; in the first case, we found out after coaxing him out from under the deck, and in the second, I was a thousand miles away helping a friend when Wings discovered him, again hiding, and texted me frantic photos before, during, and after a rush to the vet while I, long-distance, begged all the forces and spirits for our brindle boy's life.
And every time, the ravens gathered. He had a few smaller instances, usually from getting into scraps, once or twice from having eaten something he shouldn't, and always, always, the ravens gathered round, hovering, waiting and watching until he was sufficiently recovered to suggest that he was fine; then they'd move on about their business. It was the oddest thing.
So when the tumor developed to the point that it made its presence finally known, every time the ravens appeared (which they began to do with frightening regularity), I began to worry that he would be taken from us. It seems, though, that they were here to watch over him, just as he watched over me all those years ago, to lend their support to help him stay where he so dearly wanted to be just a while longer . . . almost a year, in fact.
By the end of April in 2019, we thought it would be any day. On several occasions, his breathing had already slowed so much as to be unnoticeable, eyes open but sound asleep and perfectly still, and we thought it was done . . . only to have him awaken and smile and wonder with his eyes where the next bone was. By April's end, I had written a piece, submitted but never picked up, that is being published on my Patreon tonight, a sprawling reminiscence built around his last days lying at my feet. He would last exactly three weeks more, twenty-one days.
By the early hours of the morning of May 21st, we knew we had to call our vet. He was not able to come out until after 5, when they closed, and it was a surgery day, so we were lucky to get him at all. I held his upper body in my arms, and as the needle went in, Raven dropped his head against my chest so that he could be as close as possible in that final moment, 5:19 PM by the clock, Wings standing over us with his hands in his fur, and everybody wept.
Everybody.
The vet tech helped Wings settle him in his resting place, and the vet asked to be allowed to throw some dirt in before the closed it up. That's family, so of course the answer's always yes. And just as they shoveled the last bit of earth over and began tamping it into place, there was a flurry of movement just behind the latillas that bound the grave: out of exactly nowhere, a raven, flying straight up from the earth, cackling and laughing, soaring and swooping above us, over and over, until he finally shot westward, laughing all the way.
When I went out in the wind this evening to take him his cedar and tobacco and water, as I always do, the raven returned to the east field, settling gently down on the ground to watch. As I finished, I heard a flurry of wings, and turned to see the raven soaring past, swooping and circling and cackling before heading back again.
No more pain. Two years now that Raven's spirit is free. I'm glad my guardian comes to visit occasionally still, that he hasn't forgotten us.
Because we love you, Raven. We're glad you're flying free now.
The raven was back today. When I went out
ll content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
