Fred: My First Love

I grew up with a black lab mix that was the love of my life. His name was Fred—and he liked me best. He slept with me, followed dutifully by my side, and when I left for college, he became depressed. I missed him dearly.

Fred had epilepsy and had to take several pills every day. I often woke up to him seizing in my bed—his grand mal seizures would move my bed back and forth, bouncing it off the wall. It was hard to see him like that. But we all loved him deeply. He taught me what love without conditions looks like.

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✨ Enzo Found Me

Just after I accepted my job as a teacher, I began talking to my now ex-husband about getting a dog. I wanted a black lab like Fred, and I wanted to name him Enzo. I had no idea where that name came from—it just arrived, like a whisper. Maybe it was the “ends in O” theme since our cats were named Pedro and Diego. Maybe it was divine channeling before I had any idea what that was.

My husband didn’t grow up with many pets and wasn’t thrilled about the idea, but he agreed. I got to work looking for puppies and quickly found an organization in Minnesota that housed pets with temporary adoptive families before finding them permanent homes.

On New Year’s Day, I drove two hours to meet a litter of eight mixed-breed puppies that looked like black labs. One of them was already named Enzo—but I didn’t assume he was “the one.” I trusted the right dog would choose me.

As I watched the puppies, not knowing which was Enzo, I noticed one that calmly played alone while the rest wrestled and tumbled around him. The others kept trying to engage him—biting his ears and tail, stealing his toys—but he just wandered off and found something else to quietly enjoy. I asked about him, and sure enough, that was Enzo.

The temporary owner admitted that if he wasn’t adopted soon, she was planning to keep him. She told me that all the puppies had been abandoned in a box on the side of the road on Christmas Day. They were sick with kennel cough and recovering. I asked about his breed and got the run-around. I assumed he was part bully breed, but I didn’t care. I wanted him.

I adopted him on the spot.

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🌀 The Wild Years

For the first two weeks, he mostly slept and coughed. He was very sick. But once he was well… he was a bit of a terror.

He was impossible to walk on a leash. If someone came over, he’d get so excited he’d pee all over himself—and them. We tried to socialize him, but we weren’t great at dog training. He was intense. Insecure. Reactive. A full-blown lunatic around some other dogs. Embarrassing, honestly.

A trainer once told us he was dangerous and we shouldn’t keep him. I was heartbroken. We tried everything—harnesses, muzzles, the gentle leader, prong collars, treat bribes. Nothing worked. And I hated the idea of hurting him. That wasn’t the relationship I wanted. I loved him, even when I didn’t understand him.

He hurt me often—not on purpose. He’d bolt after a squirrel or bird and yank me so hard I’d fall face-first into a neighbor’s yard. It happened while I was pregnant more than once. Eventually, I had to stop walking him for my own safety.

Still, I loved him. I did my best. He mellowed out as he aged. He was always kind—just excitable in unpredictable ways. We didn’t kennel him during the day, but we worked a lot. He spent too many hours alone, and I know that was hard for him. He just wanted to be part of our world. Always.

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🕯️ Letting Go Differently This Time

When we moved into our new house in November 2023, Enzo was 12. His energy declined. He was losing weight. By spring, I knew in my gut he had cancer. He stopped finishing his food, and that was the clearest sign—he was always food-motivated.

At first, I resolved not to intervene. I felt in my soul that he wouldn’t want me to.

But then I panicked. What if it was treatable? I took him in. The labs confirmed what I feared—his body wasn’t making new blood cells. Blood cancer. Again, I resolved to let him go in his own time, in his own way—at home, not in a cold exam room.

That’s not how I’d handled Pedro and Diego.

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🐈 Pedro & Diego

Diego had wasted away to a skeleton. I drove him to the vet alone. Just before we walked in, he shakily climbed onto my lap, then up my chest, putting a paw on each side of my neck—like a hug. Like he was comforting me.
Fifteen minutes later, I was driving home with my dead friend in a box.

Pedro stopped eating. Stopped grooming. The vet examined him, used a light to look down his throat, and I watched the vet’s energy change. I watched his heart break on my behalf. I didn’t need him to tell me Pedro was dying- I felt it at that exact moment. His eyes connected with mine and I asked, “how long does he have?” “Two weeks at most,” he said. “He has a rare and aggressive cancer. He isn’t eating or grooming because he has tumors growing in his throat. Soon they will be visible in his mouth and he won’t be able to shut his mouth.”

Pedro lived for three weeks. He withered. I cleaned him, cuddled him with my breath held- he smelled of rot. He could barely open or close his mouth. I piled soft food into tall skinny mountains so he could take one small bite from the top, then I would pile it up again. I did this for hours, desperately trying to extend his life. He was in terrible pain but resisted pain meds.
One morning I woke to blood splattered across my bedroom. It looked like a crime scene with Pedro sitting in the middle of the mess soaked in his own blood.
That was the last straw.
We put him down that day.

I’ve questioned myself ever since. Did I euthanize them because I couldn’t handle my discomfort watching them suffer? Did I rob them of a natural death surrounded by love, in favor of what was easier for me?

I didn’t want that for Enzo. But letting him die on his own terms nearly broke me.

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⏳ 11:11

As Enzo declined, we gave him pain meds and appetite stimulants to prolong what time we had. Then, the stimulant ran out. Every vet in town was either out or refused to prescribe it. When I finally found more, it was too late. He refused to take it.

I prayed endlessly. Drew tarot cards. Begged the universe for clarity.

And I had a strong, unshakable feeling:
He would have a seizure—and then die.

The night he passed, I went to bed with a heavy heart. I was still wrestling with the idea of euthanasia. Was it more or less cruel than allowing him to slowly starve to death? I didn’t want him to suffer, and I didn’t want to rob him of a natural death at home with the people who love him. It was an impossible choice.

Around 11 p.m., I woke to a familiar sound overhead. Years of Fred’s seizures had prepared me for this and I would know that sound anywhere.

I leapt out of bed and bounded up the stairs two at a time. I passed the clock in the dining room on the way to the living room where I left him.
The clock read 11:11. Alignment. Divine timing.

I raced to Enzo. Pet his head. Whispered in his ear that I loved him. That it would be okay. His frail body convulsed. He exhaled one final time. I felt his heart beating steady in his frail chest long after he stopped breathing. My heart was beating so hard it was hard that for a moment I got lost in the sensation of both of our hearts beating.

The room filled with the scent of feces as his body let go.

I prayed over him before walking, slowly, back downstairs.

As I entered the bedroom Dustin said, “Baby?” “Enzo is dead,” I said, flatly.

He and Duane sprang from bed, disbelieving. We held each other and walked upstairs together. Stared at his body in shock. We wrapped him in a green bath towel and buried him behind the shed. We prayed over him. Sat at the kitchen table, stunned, and talked about him for an hour.

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💔 What He Taught Me

Enzo taught me that love doesn’t have to be easy to be everything.

That devotion can look chaotic. Imperfect. Embarrassing.
That sometimes, the ones who are hardest to hold are the ones who need holding most.
That I don’t have to fix pain—I just have to stay with it.

He taught me to let go when it’s time, and to trust timing I can’t understand in the moment.

He taught me to appreciate EVERYTHING, even the things that irritate me.
He died starving. And the irony of that didn’t escape me.
My boy, who used to steal entire loaves of bread off the counter and gobble them down like a gremlin in the night. Who would beg so relentlessly it bordered on harassment. Who’d dig through backpacks and knock over the trash can at the slightest whiff of food.
It drove me crazy! It made me MAD.
But near the end, I would have traded anything to clean up the mess of a tipped over trash can.
The things that used to frustrate me became the things I missed most.
Funny how grief makes a sacred altar out of everything we once took for granted.

He didn’t die in a sterile room.
He died at home.
At 11:11.
Surrounded by love.
And I stayed.

I didn’t get everything “right.”
But I loved him the whole way through.
And maybe—just maybe—that was enough.