In October 2013, I arrived on La Palma, Canary Islands (Spain), trying to “make it happen” there. La Palma had already been on my mind for quite a while as a possible destination to find a new home.
In fact, in June 2011, I went there the first time, just to check it out. I spent two weeks to explore the island to see if what I had been reading about it would be the same in actual practice. The island didn’t disappoint me.
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After staying on a campsite on the West side of the island for about a month, I rented a little house on the East side, not far from La Palma’s capital city Santa Cruz.
The owner of the house I rented lived on the same terrain and would go to Tenerife for Christmas until New Year (by the way, Tenerife is one of the eight main Canary Islands). She asked me if I would be willing to take care of her house and two dogs during that week.
Well, no problem there, but then — on Christmas day — the dog died. One of the two I took care of. It was a big, big dog. A nice dog. A brown she-dog. A power dog with a head twice as big as mine and jaws that could rip an arm off your body in a second.
That morning she had already acted a bit strange. Not as usual. She was walking around in circles, moaning, crying a bit — it looked like she just couldn’t find her rest.
The weird thing was that she took a Santa Claus teddy bear in her mouth (I actually don’t know where she got it because it was not my house) and wouldn’t let go of it the whole morning.
So, at some point, I decided to go out with her, thinking she could use a walk or something … that she might be bursting with energy.
Then outside she lost her Santa Claus toy, actually a fluffy Santa hat. We returned home, but she remembered losing it and started scratching at the yard door.
I reckoned she wanted her teddy bear, so I let her out; she ran, fetched it, and returned home immediately. She went upstairs where she rested at day-time, but about five minutes later I heard two hard thumps on the floor upstairs.
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I ran up and saw the dog trembling on the floor. I was shocked, called her name, she looked up one time, turned her head down again, and then she went into a coma, breathing very softly. A minute or two later it was over. The dog died.
She died on me, and something strange and ugly died in me too, something was taken from me to be reborn immediately in something new — something unknown. I couldn’t stop crying, shaking, I lost control, and a vast wave of emotions raged through my body.
I had an emergency telephone number of two acquaintances of the owner, and I called them. Two hours after the dog had passed away, I buried her in the garden with their help. They advised me not to call the owner and tell her, but to let her have a peaceful Christmas, and that they would pick her up on New Year’s Day in the harbor and inform her then.
The two acquaintances left, and all of a sudden I was again alone in the house. In a way still shocked and wondering if I did something wrong. But at the same time I was also thankful for this remarkable experience. Some hours later, I realized the dog had almost forcefully poured her life into me, her energy, at the moment of her death struggle.
I was there in La Palma, in a strange house with the dog that died, looking at her fresh grave, staying behind with the other dog, the very small one, which would miss her dearly.
