bidding adieu

I’ve dreaded having to write this for years. I chose not to edit, so here is what I wrote last night after KC passed away.

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When I was about 12 years old, our dog Larry died. Larry had been around before me and was a black mutt-border collie mix that only its owner could love. He stunk from the moment I knew him, wasn’t overly friendly, and he lived to be like 18.

Funny how that happens.

But it didn’t matter, as a dog lover, Larry was my boy.

Even though Larry wasn’t the most beautiful, put-together dog you’d ever seen, I spent a lot of time with him, and it hit me hard when he passed away. I remember crying hard with my mom that day when we were driving home from school and she told me what happened. Even though Larry was ancient, I’d still never had anything I cared about die. Our neighbors had a golden retriever named Bailey and I solved my Larry sadness by finding her outside or stealing her for the afternoon. But it could’ve been any dog; it didn’t matter.

After a few weeks, I was begging to get another one; enough time had passed in my book. My parents played hard to get, always coming up with a different reason that we weren’t going to get another dog. I begged and pleaded and wrote essays in school to my teachers, trying to convince my parents to get another dog. I’ll take care of the dog (lie), I’ll feed the dog (lie), I’ll train the dog (somewhat true), and I’ll pick up their shits (biggest lie).

This went on for about a year, which was probably the right amount of time. No kid can fathom why it would take any longer than a week to get over the old and get on with the new, but looking back, it was the right call.

Christmas came around and I wasn’t even thinking about it. I’d (my recollection could differ from the official report) started asking less… it seemed we were never gonna get another dog. We’d opened all of our presents, and once again, no dog. I’d given up hope, but also thought that they’d never do the cliché Christmas dog move.

And then the doorbell rang.

I can still picture my face and what I was wearing (a Rob Gronkowski t-shirt) when I saw a puppy sitting in a cardboard box as I whipped open our front door. I couldn’t fucking believe it — a golden retriever puppy.

My little brother and I immediately scooped her out of the box and started playing with her in the front yard. Her tail had been battered after getting caught in a door when she was only a few weeks old — which is a funny detail I’m just now remembering — but so tethered to her toughness we’d witness down the road.

Like most families with 3 brothers, we couldn’t come up with a name.

The Lauritzen girls (our unofficial sisters) were adamant about naming her Bells — we thought that was lame as shit, this was good thinking looking back. My dad thought we should name her Merion — a somewhat cool name, but I’m glad we decided against it. My older brother thought it’d be funny to name her Beyoncé. That feels like a huge miss looking back.

We scratched all those ideas.

I don’t know who proposed it or how long it took us, but we settled on KC. We had just returned from our annual Christmas trip NFL game where our parents would buy us tickets to watch an NFL game in a faraway stadium… and that year it just so happened to be in Kansas City to watch the Chiefs and Colts play. We loved Andrew Luck.

The name KC stuck.

KC not only quickly became a part of the Murdock family, but it wasn’t long before she was the star.

My mom thought she was getting another female presence in the house, she was wrong. The Murdock boys quickly transitioned KC from the sweetest puppy to a tomboy in a matter of days. We threw her around, wrestled with her, coached her how to bite, and taught her all the sports that were running our lives. She would launch herself at errant shots that ricocheted off the rim, standing on her hind legs, wedging her two front paws so she could control a rebound and claim her territory by slobbering all over the basketball. She’d catch chip shots when I hit chip shots with foam golf balls in our backyard. She’d chase a tennis ball for hours, to the point that we wondered if she’d keep chasing until she dropped dead. She ran back and forth while we threw the football in the front yard, and as she matured as a player, she’d get a jump on the ball before it was thrown and side-eye it in case she could make a play on it. She turned into Darrelle Revis.

It took KC all of about 6 months to completely take over our cul-de-sac and become the fan favorite.

She sprinted up and down the bayou, slept in ridiculous positions, terrorized squirrels despite being far too dumb to ever catch one, and made a friend out of every human she met — my favorite thing about her.

For the first 4-5 years she became the 4th Murdock kid — you knew Mark, Drew, and Turner, but you really knew the house on the corner of Shady Forest and Broadgreen with the basketball hoop was where KC lived. She’d catch balls that bounced off the roof and launch herself through bushes if a lizard so much as twitched.

She was scared of vacuums-and-tinfoil-and-toys that moved-and-brooms-and-a door that wasn’t completely open-and-any dog that walked past our street while she was looking out the window-and-small dogs that we envisioned her classifying as mini-squirrels (disdainful).

Boy did small dogs pissed her off… the nerve.

And at one point, she even hated the pool until one day, I scooped her up and tossed her in, and then she never left. KC and I had an interesting relationship… was it love or hate? We’ll never know. We wrestled and played, I taught her to sit and stay and shake, I gave her (way) too many treats, and loved giving her pets, because no one appreciated them more than KC. But there was no doubt she saw right through my jackassery and probably never trusted me after I threw her in the pool or riled her up to fake fight for the 271st time.

When she turned five she got really, really sick out of the blue. And after a night of heavy breathing and looking like she was in immense pain every time she tried to lie down, we took her to the vet where they told us she had a problem with her lungs. The doctors recommended that we put her down, but KC was the heartbeat of our family; she couldn’t die so young… she was sprinting around just a few days ago. So my parents spent a shitload of money and rolled the dice on what the doctors deemed a 5% chance of survival.

That was enough because it was KC; she couldn’t die so young. We said our goodbyes, cried our eyes out, and eagerly waited to hear how the surgery went.

Unsurprisingly, she came through. That’s what the great ones do, they pull it out when you least expect them to. KC was no different.

She had a foot-long scar on her belly, a dreadful cone, and one of the worst haircuts of all time, but she was still kicking. And they forced her to wear a t-shirt which we found really comical for some reason. You could tell she’d been through absolute hell, but she was still KC. She was relegated to a small area in our living room to keep her from moving too quickly or reopening her wounds, but that quickly expanded because the doctors (my brothers and I) thought she was doing well enough.

She recovered fully, except that she’d lost a step of speed.

She still pranced around the front yard trying to scare every squirrel in sight, she still chased tennis ball after tennis ball, and she still found every excuse to jump in our pool after any sort of activity.

She was our miracle dog.

As I graduated high school, KC’s age began to show. Her nose began to whiten, her speed began to nose-dive and her back legs began to give. That’s the hard thing about having a golden retriever — their prime is short, and when their body goes, it goes.

But the twinkle in her eyes never disappeared. Her tail would still whip violently at the sign of any familiar face that walked through the front door. She still sprang from the couch or bed at any side of human food. And she still loved being outside any moment she could.

KC witnessed just about every major milestone of our family.

She watched us grow up. All three kids graduated from high school under her watchful eye. She was present at Masters Friday, serving as a de facto garbage disposal for any sucker who couldn’t say no to her sympathetic, always hungry gaze. She licked my face after my first heartbreak and after my grandpa passed away. She was there after I quit football and had very few people to turn to. She was there every time I came home from college, citing I wanted a home-cooked meal — sorry Mom, I really just wanted to see KC.

As KC aged, she gave up many of her old hobbies.

She no longer had the endurance to chase after the tennis ball for hours or even minutes, or run more than a couple of times in a row while we were throwing the football. She had a few moments where she proved that her spark and passion never left, before letting her tongue hang and drool and bounce as she crashed into our front yard, exhausted. Older KC especially loved this; she became our security guard. That was always her favorite thing, gazing around the ‘hood to see if anything needed to be monitored, keeping a watchful eye at all times.

Actually no, her favorite thing was sitting in the middle of our Christmas present opening and waiting for passes of crumpled up paper to shred to smitherines.

Actually no, her favorite thing was sitting next to Papa as he fed her beggin strips like a horny guy throwing out 1s at a strip club, don’t tell anyone how many of these i’ve given you, he’d say.

Actually no, her favorite thing was sitting right underneath my dad’s feet as he crushed honey roasted peanuts and dished KC 27% of his inventory.

Actually no, her favorite thing was what we called indoor/outdoor, where she sat by the front door as it sat wide open, where her options were limitless — do i enjoy the AC or venture out into the wild? the value is that i have the choice, no other dogs have the choice.

Actually no, her favorite thing was Jenny Murdock’s high-pitched voice after a long day of work as she sat down right next to her and gave her 17 consecutive minutes of attention. (I’m hoping she was too sad to read this far, but I’m finally resigned to the fact that I was never KCs favorite; it was always Mom).

The last few years of KC’s were painful at times, like most things coming to an end. We would always send memes whenever we’d get videos or photos where she looked especially old — Joe Montana on the Chiefs, Hakeem Olajuwon on the Raptors — the final years of an illustrious career.

We were convinced that she gutted through at least one, maybe two ACL tears. Her back left leg hung awkwardly, causing her to limp around, but she never let it define her — she’d still trot around on walks, and every now and then you could tell she was really hurt, but after a day or two she’d be right back to normal. What a fucking warrior. She’d still stuff her face in bushes on the side of a hill or chase after a deer when she probably had no business even walking.

That was KC.

Over the last year, she really began to slow down. A major surgery, some blown-out knees, a house move, and far too many rebounds and tennis ball chases had finally caught up to her. You could see it every time she tried to get up; her hind legs faltered. Just as you could when she was trying to get some rest and she’d crash down hard and make noises that sounded unpleasant. Her walks began to look painful, like you could tell she was ready to go.

But the twinkle never left. Her tail still slammed against the floor every single time I walked through the front door. She still pawed me as soon as I sat down next to her and stopped petting her for two seconds. Her eyes still followed my every move as I grabbed something out of the pantry.

When I moved to SF 3 weeks ago, it was hard saying goodbye to my number one pal… I knew there was a chance that it could have been the last time I ever saw her. I remember sitting with her in the living room for 30 minutes the night before I left and I’m so glad that I did. That dog watched me grow up. She watched me change and evolve. She was present every time I wanted to be alone. Every time I didn’t feel like there was anyone I could turn to.

KC was always there with a smile and a tail wag.

When my dad called me this afternoon, I had a funny feeling — 3 PM on Wednesdays are not meant for phone calls from him. I was with a group of my friends in the car so I didn’t really feel like interrupting our field trip to drop that news on everyone, but my stomach dropped when he mentioned KC. I knew she’d been struggling for the last week, but I didn’t want to believe it. They said she seemed like whatever it was was really bothering her and she seemed to be in a lot of pain. My mom and little brother got to go say goodbye and they put her down later in the afternoon.

I did a pretty good job holding it together until about an hour ago. Dinner distracted me, I facetimed my mom which somehow made me feel better, I hung out with friends for most of the day/night, but I could feel it coming. I didn’t really want to cry or want to be sad, but I realized it would be better and more productive to just get the sadness out. I read an old Bill Simmons article he wrote about his dog passing and then started writing my own. And the tears flooded out of me.

All the moments and memories that a family creates with a dog rush to mind and hit you like a wave. The countless car rides where a dog is just happy to be along for the ride. Her disdain for the 4th of July and New Year’s Eve. Her ability to somehow always lay in a position to (potentially fatally) trip an old person. Her weirdly long era of humping. The amount of water she was able to get out of the pool as she leapt out. Her disgust when we brought home a light-up golden Christmas decoration that we named Jaycee, that shit isn’t funny guys.

But most of all, the memories of KC being the guardian of the house. Always the first to greet you with a smile and a tail wag before she took her business elsewhere. Always watching the front door to see if any of her favorite humans were about to step through.

There are a lot of reasons to be sad about someone/something dying. When my grandpa passed, it was the realization that I’d never get to talk to him again… there was an unfamiliar finality to it, I’d never lost someone.

With KC, it’s different.

The sadness comes from knowing that there will never be another dog like her ever again.

I’ve never seen a dog radiate friendliness like KC. Or act more like a human. Or understand a family more. Or read the room better. Or be okay with wasting an entire day hanging out and catching up on some sleep.

KC didn’t care, as long as she was with someone who loved her.

We got 7 extra years from a dog who gave us everything we could possibly want/need, and more. Unfortunately, all good things come to an end.

A true one of one. RIP, Ace.