Dolce Morte is a small batch ice cream sold only in the Four Seasons, Buenos Aires. I had the vanilla ice cream, and it was the absolute best vanilla ice cream I have ever eaten. It was sweet and the texture was amazingly smooth. Although they do not sell merch, my waitress did find a few stickers for me.
I was attracted to the name because it literally means sweet death and it left me pondering the concept of a sweet death as death is usually thought of as sad and bitter and not sweet at all. However, I realized that death could be sad, but sweet if someone went gently into the night and was surrounded by their loved ones.
Luke’s death, as sudden as it was, was sweet. We woke up on a sunny morning in July to a very sick dog who could not walk down the stairs. Although he was 14, we thought he would live another few years. Unfortunately, the emergency vet said he was bleeding internally and although she could do surgery, it would only give him a few more months and he would not have a good quality of life.
My daughter and I made the decision to euthanize our sweet boy, and we called Sean, my son and Luke’s big brother, so he could say goodbye. Sean choked his goodbyes into the phone and Luke, in his last act of agency, jumped off the couch to lay in a patch of sun. I sat beside him on the floor and stroked him, and my daughter sat in front of him and petted his head. In his very last moments, he knew he was loved very much and that it was okay to say goodbye.
We were devastated by our loss, but were also comforted in knowing that he had not been in pain and that he knew he was loved and cared for up until his very last minute on earth. We also realized that he must have known his time was near as Friday night, when I took Sean to the train station, Luke had been super affectionate and had insisted on going with me to take Sean. Although Sean didn’t know it at the time, Luke had insisted on that one last goodbye.
Sean was in the Midwest with his father and was set to take a six hour train ride home alone. Cam and I decided that there was no way we could let Sean make the trip home by himself in tears and sadness on the train. We drove six hours to Chicago to pick him up and shared stories of Luke along the way. We met him at the designated meeting place, my ex gave me an awkward hug, and then we headed to Scoops, Luke’s favorite ice cream place.
When we lived in Chicago, we would sometimes walk Luke over to Scoops and one of us would go in while he anxiously waited outside. He would gobble down his vanilla ice cream, then beg us for the remnants of ours. Luke was always a polite beggar. He would start out by standing and looking at us, then at the food he wanted. If that didn’t work, he would sit down and continue his routine. His grand begging finale was laying down and looking as if he could no longer go on.
After our memorial ice cream, we headed to another of Luke’s favorite places, the lake front. We’d drive to the lake front and walk along the trail. In the winter, Luke, who hated puddles and getting wet, would roll around in the snow and do what we called the worm. If there was no one around, we would release his leash and let him run free for a few minutes. We left the lake front and got back in the car to begin the long drive home to Ohio, knowing that when we got there our home would feel empty as there was no fuzzy orange dog waiting to greet us.