Yet again, July 5th has turned out to be a very sad day for my brother & his family.
Their first dog, Kona, passed away last night at home about 10:30pm CDT. As I had the boys with me still, Doug called earlier in the evening to let them know that Kona was not well & for them to say good-by over the phone. My older nephew, D. is a very emotional sort & took the news hard. He cried for nearly two hours. Finally, tapping into that collection of 41,000+ images helped as we looked for photos of Kona all the way back to 1999 when I first met him. Younger nephew, C. was upset for about 30 minutes, then got into video games with Tab and proceeded to fall asleep on the couch. Ahhhh, to be 6 years old again....
So in honor of Kona, here is his story, as least as I remember it....
In 1997, my brother & SIL were stationed in Hawaii for her to start her Army nursing career. For Hawaii being the 50th state, it's a bit of a foreign place in some ways. And looking for a way to recreate "home", my brother wanted a dog.
I'm not sure exactly where Kona came from originally. He was an American Eskimo and a gorgeous solid white fluffy, furred dog. I know that at some point during his puppy-hood he had lived with cats, because he was always fond of them, and enjoyed visiting with mine when he stayed at my home.
At some point my brother & SIL took him in as a rescue because he was ill with heart worms & needed medical treatment. I'm not sure if his original owner couldn't afford his care & relinquished him to the local shelter, or if Doug heard of him "from a friend of a friend". [My brother has an uncanny knack for finding dogs to rescue & then finding them homes.... It's that pushover quality that he & Michael have, that I love.] They cared for Kona & proceeded with his treatment. I remember hearing about Kona having to spend days in a kennel small enough to keep him from moving much & stressing his ill heart. But being the tenacious dog he was, he pulled through.
He and my brother were extremely close. Doug trained him well, and Kona had a quiet authority to him that was calming to be around. I fell in love with him during my 5 weeks that I lived with them in Hawaii. Kona was my lap buddy. He was calm & quiet and had the mannerisms of my cats whom I missed so much. He could be moody or prissy or sassy, and you could tell by the look on his face when his mood changed. He was busy in 1999 too, because he had a job to do; training that young pup Mia how to behave & be a good family dog. That became one of his jobs, every time a new dog/baby was added to the family, Kona very seriously & diligently would train them on how to be a good family member; how to get along with others.
With my nephews he was patient & kind. He didn't bark at them, nor nip at them. He just patiently suffered as they pulled on his long white fur while learning how to stand. When they'd get out of the bath, Kona would curl up around them or lay across their laps to keep them warm. He'd shepherd the boys, or supervise as Mia would guard them. He was their first "big brother"....
As a member of an Army family, he became a B.R.A.T. [Been Reassigned And Transferred] multiple times to multiple continents. But always, he took traveling in stride. In his mind, home was where his family and food bowl landed.
In 2006 after returning from Germany and staying with me for about 3 weeks, it became obvious that he was slowing down. The past few years have found him going deaf and blind and moving slower and slower. And then finally age caught up with him. I'm not sure exactly how old he was when Doug adopted him, but we estimate he made it to 13 or 14 years old, which is pretty decent in doggy years.
The irony of his passing was that it was exactly one year to the day that Mia died, as well as Doug & Lisa's 12th wedding anniversary. To say that they're taking this double whammy hard, is a gross understatement. I know that their house will feel empty for a while, and that they'll think they still see him from the corner of their eye, and that as time goes by they'll be able to think of him without crying -- but right now, the loss is fresh and huge.
So Kona, you always were and always will be the best first dog.
We love you & Godspeed....
