Our lovingly loud and passionate-about-objects-in-the-sky Baron passed away recently at age 11 years and 5 months.
After a normal start to life, in 2011 at 15 months old, a trip to a local swimming lake almost ended his life. Unbeknownst to us he was bitten by an American Dog Tick that afternoon and three months later he was fighting for his life. He had contracted Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever which then left him permanently immunocompromised and with Pancytopenia. Over the next couple years, he battled and won the fight against two very serious fungal infections and other health issues relating back to the tick bite.
We prayed he’d make his 2nd birthday and when he did, we again said “Let’s shoot for age 5”. We again prayed he would make it age 8… and he did… so we set our sights on age 10. Once he turned 10, we would tell him “to infinity and beyond kid”.
He truly was our ‘Benjamin Button’. He became more puppy-like as he aged… stealing shoes, snatching loaves of bread off the counter, and shredding the bag to get to the carbs (he loved carbs), sticking his nose in the ice bin to get ice, roughhousing with his sisters. He loved sitting on the deck, in the rocker, watching everything. He loved tummy rubs and ice cream cones. He loved catching frisbees (he rarely missed). He also had the softest ears on earth. Oh, those incredibly soft ears.
He was boisterous when it came to birds flying overhead, squirrels in his trees, airplanes and helicopters flying over his airspace. He had great disdain for the moon and riding lawn mowers as well. Basically, he barked his head off at these things ALL. THE. TIME. He was not a fan of smoke detectors beeping (I guess we can put batteries back in them again), of the waffle maker beeping and the garbage truck was his mortal enemy. He was quirky, but those things made us love him even more fiercely.
We rejoiced in watching him age, we smiled at his grey chin and eyebrows. With those grey hairs he sported, we proclaimed we would be happy when it was his time to leave us – with every grey hair we knew he beat the tough odds. While letting him go yesterday was soul crushing after years of fighting for him to stay healthy, we held him as he transitioned to the giant swimming pool in heaven and said out loud “He made it to 11 and a half, he passed away with a grey face.” We rejoice in that simple fact. We couldn’t have asked for anything more and we are happy he lived such a long life.
We love you BabaBears, BearBear, Bears, Chunky Monkey, MonkeyBear, Buddy, BuddyBears, Bubba, Sir Barky McBarksalot.
You were our world and a feisty force of nature Baron Feldmann