She was my mother’s dog. My mother picked her out from a bundle of puppies. They were cocker spaniel-lab puppies, as far as we knew. We all wanted the little black one, but my mother demanded the tan one. She named her Ki’i, Hawaiian for the color of sand. We all loved that dog. She was our surfer. We’d take her down to the beach and she’d swim out to anyone with a surfboard. She loved the water.

After my mom died, no one really took proper care of her. Because she was a cocker spaniel mix she had that long wavy hair on her and it tended to get matted and dreadlocked. Making her a true local dog, but also making her look a little homeless. I’d cut off her dreads for her and try to bathe her and remove the ticks. Hawaii's dogs are different than mainland dogs. Our ticks and fleas don’t carry diseases. We don’t have rabies. And very few people keep their dogs indoors. Despite her lack of upkeep, Ki’i was always happy to see you. She came bounding out from behind bushes at the slam of our front gate. The most beautiful welcoming party I’ve ever seen.

Ki’i was a very lovely dog, she wasn’t big, she wasn’t small, she was just right to still fit in your lap. She had huge, soft brown eyes with light, tan eyelashes. She was kind. She barked mercilessly at my Uncle Peter, we never figured out why. And even after she had gone stone-deaf she barked, randomly with the neighborhood dogs. It was as thought she could feel the vibrations through the air. I think she really just had selective hearing.

Often times, we would be watching TV inside and hear a loud thump on our screen door. Ki’i was fond of throwing her entire body into the door, just because. People who were not used to her loud outbursts of attention would jump at the sound and ask what it was.

“Oh, that’s just Ki’i, she does that.”

I don’t think there was a person, other than my Uncle Peter that this dog did not love whole-heartedly. Just as she threw her entire self against our screen door, she would throw her entire heart and soul into spending time with you. Her eyes, mouth and tail were all coordinated to smile at the sight of you.

The last time I saw Ki’i my aunt and I were talking about “the dog.” She had grown strangely thin, losing 10 pounds in a little under a year. She rarely ate. But her eyes were still bright and her tail still wagged. Other than her thin exterior you would have never known she was suffering. I was still not used to the fact that she was deaf and would catch myself calling her name out several times before remembering. I hadn’t lived at home for almost five years. My aunt and I talked about when we look at Ki’i, especially at her eyes, we see my mother. Because my mother was so buoyant and happy and that was exactly how Ki’i was a bubbly, joyful, bouncy dog. You could look into her big supple brown eyes and see traces of the love my mother put into this dog. Even though Ki’i lived without my mother for 10 years, there were dashes of all kinds of memories. I petted Ki’i’s skinny belly and she rolled onto her back to better receive it. I scratched her behind the ears and got on my plane, to leave Hawaii. In my mind, I was positive I’d see Ki’i again, the dog was 15 years old, she made it this far.

A week later, I got a text message from my little sister with a short concise message “Ki’i died.” I didn’t believe her and when asked why I didn’t get a phone call my text was answered with “because I can’t stop crying.” Sure, the dog was slightly under-cared-for but we all loved her the same. She carried with her a little piece of everyone in the family, not just my mother, even those who weren’t related by blood.

My little sister told me I should be grateful I left when I did, because things went into a downward spiral for Ki’i from there. She stopped eating entirely and when they took her to the vet they gave her a type of dog food actually called Anorexic Dog and taught my little sister and my grandmother how to force feed her. Three days later, on a Sunday morning, Ki’i was found dead under the picnic table, she had been dead a few hours. My sister told me Ki’i’s eyes were open and my father had to close them when he got home from work (a fire fighter working 24-hour shifts). My dad wrapped Ki’i in a sheet and they commenced to bury her, in her yard, underneath the red Plumeria tree. Everyone cried. My dad erected a mini-monument to the outstanding old dog and they went to church. At church, a song that is rarely ever sung in church commenced. It was one of the songs played at my mother’s funeral at the same church. My little sister cried. We found out Monday that Ki’i had liver problems and could not actually process any food, which was why she stopped eating.

She was the last living piece of my mother for us. I think that’s why she lived so long. She survived almost 11 years without my mother and yet we all swore that if we looked in her eyes we would see this wonderful, shining human being that used to light up a room with her laugh.

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