My mom took this picture about a month ago. This would be the last time my parents and our family saw our sweet girl.

My sister and her family have had Denali as part of their family for the past seventeen years. Kyle, who’s eighteen, can’t remember a time without her. She found them as a stray in Flagstaff. She’d been in an accident of some kind that split her lip up to her nose. They tried to find her owners, but never did. Denali became a Wilson.

It’s not typical for a dog to live to be seventeen, but then, Denali isn’t a typical dog. She’s survived getting hit by a car on two occasions. She’s been bailed out of the pokey a few times because her wandering spirit took her too far away from home after she found a way out of the yard. Denali has also been know to walk the cinder block walls like a neighborhood cat. True story.

She loved her family. She loved her food. She loved her bed. But over the past year, she began her slow decline. It was hard to admit. Denali is a strong girl. A strong will. Very much like the other ladies in the family, honestly. We went for a tough hike a year ago February. Denali, in her younger years, was always up for a hike. The family decided to take Denali along and let her just sniff around the bottom of the trail. Denali had other plans.

She began her ascent. Leslee, my sister, stayed back with her, figuring she and Nali would make it a little way up and then just chill.

But Denali is a sled dog. She puts one foot in front of the other and doesn’t stop. We’d made it to the top of the ridge and could see back down the trail quite a ways into the valley. And there was Denali, not stopping, at age sixteen. She made it all the way up to the top of the hill and back, over four miles on some rough terrain.

That was Denali.

Her health recently has been failing faster. The Wilsons made the heartbreaking decision to put her to sleep. She has an inoperable tumor on one of her hind legs, and the pain was beginning to wear on her to the point she was never comfortable. Since she loves to sleep in the shade of the tree in the front yard, the family has even spent nights with her out there on blankets, hoping to help her get some good rest. Leslee has been staying home from church each Sabbath for the past month and a half. The family’s schedule has been shifted so she’s never alone.

But this evening she went to sleep for good. And she’s now buried by their other dogs. Death is like sleeping. She and Ralphie and Jakie and Samuel are sleeping. Waiting for Jesus to come again. Then she’ll have more adventures, and this time, they’ll never end.

Good night, sweet girl. We loved you so.

Melbee, from day one, loooooved Denali.