Ziva

I read once that what we call time isn’t chronological, but spacial. And what we call death is merely a transition between different kinds of matter.

One month ago, Ziva had her last full day on earth.

On the morning of August 11th, just two days before her fifth birthday, she took one last deep breath and died of a heart attack. It was so sudden, so unexpected.

The week leading up to that morning had been drenched in relentless rain, the roads flooding, the world feeling almost still beneath the weight of water. But that day, the sun returned, and she ran wild and free through the puddles and overgrown grass by the soccer field. She didn’t want to leave, no matter how many times her name was called.

She always had a way of doing that. At the beach, when I’d say, “Z, it’s time to go,” she’d give me that look. She loved the challenge of avoiding home. I would pretend to walk away, stepping up the wooden stairs to see if she’d follow, but she always knew what I was doing. You couldn’t trick her. Some days, I would walk all the way back to the Jeep, heart pounding, wondering if she was worried about where I had gone. But when I would return, I’d find her exactly where I left her—back in the water, strangers throwing sticks for her to retrieve.

In the summers, we would get to the beach by 4:30 AM, just as the sun was rising. The air would already be warm, and I would drive with the windows down, the sound of cicadas ringing in our ears. Ziva would rest her head on my shoulder as I drove, catching my eye in the rearview mirror as her ears flapped in the wind. After her swims, she would jump into the backseat, and I would towel-dry her carefully—her ears, her paws, her belly, the soft blonde-tinted hairs on her chest. She would kiss my cheek with her wet nose, and I would kiss the spot I loved most, just beneath her right eye. I would lick my lips and taste salt water.

Those moments—just us two—felt endless. I would stand barefoot, stretching on my tiptoes to reach her, my feet wanting to melt into the sand so those mornings could last forever.

Ziva made me feel invincible, and when we’d run, it felt like we’d take flight, up and into the stars together.

“Do you remember still
the falling stars
that like swift horses
through the heavens raced
and suddenly leaped
across the hurdles of our wishes
– do you recall?
And we did make so many!”
– Rainer Maria Rilke.

On the morning of August 11th, after her run on the field, she lay down on the grass by the sidewalk on the way home. She felt dizzy. She felt no pain. She took one last deep breath, and that was it.

Two strangers had stopped on the side of the road, angels in human form. They tried to resuscitate her, but she was already gone.

They helped bring her home, kneeling in the garden beside her, unable to leave. They stroked her fur and asked for her name. They told me she was a beautiful creature.

Anyone who ever met Ziva would agree. It was just like her that, even in her final moments, she managed to impact two more lives.

That was the kind of life she had. She was a healer—she made people pause, smile, laugh, and feel love.

I still can’t believe it. I miss her so much it makes my head spin.

On her birthday, I had planned to take her to the sea. There is a song by Lily & Madeleine called Sea of Love, and I used to sing it to her when she was a puppy. She had grown up in the city, but when we moved to the coast, she fell in love with the ocean.

She would swim far beyond the shore, dive under the waves with me, and dig a bed into the sand to lay in each morning. Sometimes, she would swim out so far, perfectly timing the waves—diving under when she needed to, jumping over when she could. Other times, she would simply find her spot and begin digging, stopping every so often to lift her nose to the air, taking in the scent of salt, turning to look at me as if to say, This is the most beautiful morning of my life.

We did that every morning.

I always said she must have been a mermaid in a past life.

When we moved to the highlands, she discovered the vast green fields and would run as if racing the eagles overhead. Then we would say, No, surely she was a racehorse in another life. Her lungs were so strong, her stride so graceful.

I once read that love is everything you have ever lost, returning to you. That’s how I felt the first time I held Ziva.

She was a soulmate of mine.

Sometimes, when we were lying together, running into the sea, or when I was holding her big, warm body, I would feel so overcome with emotion that I would burst into tears, startling even myself. I would think, Oh my God, I love this creature more than I ever anticipated or can comprehend.

Looking back, I think some part of me always knew.

Maybe that’s why I always kissed her one last time.

Why I always let her sleep on my pillow one more night.

Why I always gave her one more bite of my peanut butter toast.

All of the one more times suddenly made sense.

We recently learned that some Dobermans are genetically predisposed to an enlarged heart condition—DCM, Dilated Cardiomyopathy.

I read about a man whose Doberman was only three years old when he called for him in the garden. The dog came running but suddenly collapsed, suffered a heart attack, and was gone in an instant.

I cried reading it because he had written that he wondered if, had he not called his name, would it have still happened? He questioned, bargained, blamed himself.

That’s what grief does.

It makes you wonder why. It makes you question what if. It makes you feel guilt.

But these things happen.

To humans, to animals, to all living things.

We are here one moment, and the next, we are gone.

I named her Ziva because it means light or radiance.

At the time when we got her, I was in a dark place in life, heartbroken. A close friend of mine, while I held my head in my hands crying in the middle of a café, had said to me:

"Anya, Ziva is going to teach you how to feel alive again. You will watch her run so wild and free and feel a weight lift off of you from the love you’ll feel for her."

One year later, on Z’s first birthday, I wrote that friend a letter. The ink was stained on the paper from my tears of joy because I got to tell her that she was right. It felt like Ziva had breathed light and joy into my every day. I wrote the words in all capitals and slipped a polaroid of Ziva into the envelope.

I have grown up with dogs my whole life. In South Africa, we had always had Alsatians, and if my family didn’t know where I was, they’d say, "Anya is with the wolves."

Eros was one of the shepherds we had, named after the god of love. I sometimes thought, when Ziva would look deep into my eyes, that part of his soul was within hers.

When I saw Ziva in the back of the Jeep, cocooned in her blankets, my heart turned to stone, it felt so heavy.

I held her one last time, and she suddenly seemed so little.

I tried to memorise her contours, and I rubbed my hands together to cup and warm her ears because she had turned ice cold.

I knew her soul had already left her body, but I remember worrying because it was the last time I could talk to her physical form. I didn’t know what to say. I always have so much to say. I always expressed how much I loved her. I always want to say the most important things. And there I was, speechless, breathless.

The only words I could whisper were: "Ziva, you saved my life." "Ziva, you were such a good girl." "Ziva, I am sorry for the times I was impatient."

Because she really did, and she really was, and I really hoped she would forgive me.

In my mind, she will always be four, but in her nearly five years of life, in experiences and adventures had, she had really lived multiple lives in one.

It was such a privilege to take care of Ziva, to love her, to teach her.

To be taken care of by her, to be loved by her, to be taught by her.

Today, I sit in the garden as I type this. I feel the wind, a change in the air as spring is approaching.

I spot the eagles flying overhead. I walk by her fluoro orange collar hanging by the front door. We unwrapped it and placed it in the two back seats of the Jeep where she always stood. My heart breaks when I check the rearview mirror and she isn’t there.

I dream every night of tidal waves towering over me, and I can’t breathe.

I have experienced loss in this life—of creature, of human, of self.

It is something we all will, in all forms, directly or indirectly. I feel I have experienced loss even in my past lives because, since I was young, I have felt such a deep sadness.

A deep craving for stillness and tranquillity that I find only in nature and with animals in order to heal.

Now, when I drive the Jeep, I still put the windows down the way I did to imagine her velvet ears flapping in the wind. I still feel her head resting on my shoulders.

When I go to the sea, I’ll find solace in her energy powering the crest of the waves.

Gandhi once said:

"Whatever we do in life will be insignificant, but it is very important that we do it. We can never really know the meaning of our life, and we don’t need to.

Every life has a meaning, whether it lasts one hundred years or one hundred seconds. Every life, every death changes the world in its own way. Do not take it for granted, but do not take it too seriously. Do not postpone what you want. Do not leave anything misunderstood. Make sure the people you care about know, and make sure they know how you really feel."

The day after she died, a beautiful black cat we had never seen before was sitting right in the middle of the road, staring.

I wanted to speak out and ask, "Ziva?" but it sat for one more moment before it disappeared.

I thought it was a sign. I felt a wave of calm.

For anyone who has grieved or is grieving, please hold out and onto those waves.

I know it can feel as though they drown you, but you have to believe they can help carry you, too.

Wildly calm and collected by energy that crosses the plane, manifesting the light of your love that only visits me now, time and time again. 

I sense when you are near me. 

I felt it the first time I held you. 

Maybe our souls are a thousand years old and in other forms, in other lives, we have fallen in love every chance we got. 

So, until we dance in the next lifetime, I will take comfort knowing you are near, wherever this lifetime may take me, my soul will be dancing right here.