When Charlie stopped eating completely, a magpie started showing up and I swear to god, it was Eli. Magpies are common in Wyoming but I’ve never, in fifteen years, seen magpies here around the house. This magpie flew in every day and hung out on Charlie’s fence. It flicked its tail around the exact same way that Eli flicked his tail. When it first appeared, the magpie made me furious and scared because of that old rhyme – “one for sorrow, two for mirth, three’s a wedding, four a birth” – that rhyme is about magpies. When I realized the magpie was Eli, I knew I had to prepare myself, and in my sorrow, I was glad Eli had come back to guide Charlie. That’s what big brothers do.

Our last full day together was one of the best days of the year. Charlie and I spent the entire day outside, and the day was warm and mild. The magpie was on the fence flicking its tail and chattering to us. Charlie rested and I sat beside him with my knitting. He was so relaxed, smiling in his sleep, so totally at peace, the soft dome of his head a halo of sunlight. We lounged and talked and gazed at each other and nothing else existed for the whole day. In the evening, Charlie decided we should go on a little walk. He set the pace and direction, and I walked beside him until he was ready to go inside, where he stretched out on his down-covered bed. I stayed up late, just watching him.

The next morning, Charlie slept in. He went outside at 8:08 am. I know this because I checked the clock to give him ten minutes to come back inside before I went out to be with him. When I joined him, he was curled up on the sunny eastern-facing hillside, nestled under a big rabbit brush. I sat down near him, watched him and talked to him. And then, just before 9, he was gone, as light and quick as a dandelion seed lifting off on the breeze.

Charlie died of kidney failure. I can’t know this for sure, of course, but based on the speed of this whole thing, his eventual refusal to eat, and the anemia that was apparent from his tongue (it got progressively pale and was nearly white by the end), my vet said all signs pointed to kidney failure, too advanced by the time he showed symptoms to have done anything about. Charlie seemed to be improving for a couple of weeks which is why I thought it was arthritis and which, frankly, was the only reason I was capable of sharing that first update – and I’m so glad I did. Having you all looped in has helped me more than I ever could have imagined. We buried Charlie under his favorite tree.

There are so many ways this could have played out worse – for Charlie and for me (a long illness with low quality of life, a level of pain that required euthanasia, losing him suddenly to a poacher, Mike and me dying first). The only way it could have been easier is for both of us to die simultaneously in a gas leak explosion. Dying together in a gas leak explosion is literally the best case scenario when it comes to loving someone…. and we know this…. and still we choose love. This is something to be proud of.

I always knew my time with Charlie was fleeting. I always knew it was a once in a lifetime experience, and I didn’t take one moment for granted. Every single time he howled, I stopped what I was doing and reveled in the song – even if I was on the phone, even if Mike and I were in the middle of a conversation, even if I was in the middle of writing a sentence. Every day was a special day because it was a day with Charlie. Every night, I didn’t fall asleep until Charlie came in and curled up next to me. Every time I saw him, I smiled. Every photograph was a gift. This is not hyperbole – this is why I started taking pictures with him on our very first day together, and this never changed, not as days became weeks and weeks became months and months became years and the years went well beyond a decade. I never took one day, one smile, one song for granted. Every single one was a treasure. And I got to be with Charlie for nearly fourteen years, longer than I ever dreamed.

I’m doing OK considering the circumstances, and mention this because I know some of you are worried about me. If you’ve read The Daily Coyote: Ten Years in Photographs or Meditations with Cows, you’ve read variations of my essay on grief. Writing that piece was so hard, just unbelievably painful. I was sobbing with every word, every edit. But I’m so glad I wrote it, because doing so helped me immensely in processing my past, present, and future grief. It is the reason I am not off a cliff right now.

Chloe has been pretty neglected for the last month and she is thrilled to be my therapy dog. She’s glued to me and just so gentle and sweet. Friends have come through with an array of controlled substances so that I may self-medicate as needed. Mike and I reminisce about Charlie’s life and antics and laugh and cry. I continue to read your heartfelt emails.

The void is excruciating and I look for him a hundred times a day – we all do. But when I call out to his spirit, I find myself unable to utter any of my sadness. Because when I connect with him (which I do so vividly it can only be described as a psychedelic experience) the sadness disappears. I tell him I love him, and I say thank you, thank you for all the time we had. My gratitude for what we had together is like the brightest sunlight burning away the shadows. Feelings of thanks and feelings of love are the feelings I’m left with.

One of the threads that runs through Meditations with Cows is a scrutiny of entitlement and greed. I thought a lot about entitlement and greed while writing that book, on many levels – personal, interpersonal, societal; the ways we are conditioned to accept and even glorify greed; and the ways this conditioning (and my efforts to unlearn it) have affected me as an individual. All that work has helped me cope in the most unexpected way. Instead of drowning in thoughts of ‘I want more, why can’t I have more?’, I’ve been cocooned in gratitude for all that I got. All the time I got with Charlie, all the laughs, all the lessons, all the love. I got to have so much. And I’ll never not have it. I am so thankful.

The day after Charlie died, it struck me for the first time just how huge Charlie was in the world. I never thought much about that – intellectually, I understood it but it never fully registered; I never really felt it. And it just hit me for the first time – Charlie, this individual little coyote, was in People Magazine and Vanity Fair and newspapers around the globe! I was so baked (for the first time in years) and laughing hysterically and sobbing hysterically at the same time (which is really hard to do) at the magic of Charlie, and the reach of his magic. His story, his life, has been translated into multiple languages around THE WORLD. Charlie! Charlie was in all those homes and phones and offices and schools through the internet. Charlie was a superstar! God, what fun for him. He got to just live and run and dance and play and eat like a king and sleep in a bed – he got to be himself, oblivious to all that… but I know he felt it, the way I finally felt it for the first time. He felt that all the time, I know.

one year ago: Goldilooks
two years ago: Rabbit Brush Bouquet
three years ago: Floral Arrangement
four years ago: Over Yonder
five years ago: Hey Hey Hey
six years ago: An Easy Smile
seven years ago: Sunny Outlook
eight years ago: August Warmth
nine years ago: Alpine Aristocrat
ten years ago: Backlit Beauty
eleven years ago: Do you know you quite often make the typo “elf leg” instead of “elk leg”?
twelve years ago: Riding High