Kyle Banerjee's Blog

This weekend, we scattered Keiko’s ashes at her favorite place to play in the whole world. It’s near the end of the beach just north of Manzanita, Oregon at the foot of Neahkannie Mountain. Even though we routinely played fetch until my arm was sore and she couldn’t stand, she always resisted when it was time to go home. Today, I let her stay to play in the sand and waves with all dogs and people who go there.

The walk down to the beach made me a little sad. This is the first time in 11 years that I’ve gone to the beach without Keiko, and I can say that she was with me at least 90% of the times I’ve been at any beach over the course of my entire life. Games of fetch and long walks may have been the highlight of her day, but I’m sure I enjoyed it every bit as much as she did. Saying goodbye to all of that is hard, but I felt a strange weight lift from my shoulders when we let her go for good.

The rest of the weekend went pretty well. I’m preparing for a tough ride next weekend, so I rode just shy of 100 miles along the coast to test my legs and equipment. Bad luck could shut me down, but I’m feeling good about my prospects.

Even if nothing had happened with Keiko, things would be unusually nutty. I’ve been out of town on work business for half of the past two weeks (with more time away planned), and I have some big rides coming up.

This weekend we’re taking Keiko’s ashes to the beach so she can be at her favorite place in the world. She always loved the beach and never wanted to come back, so we’ll take her to the area shown in this video. I doubt anyone watching it would guess she was 10 years old, blind, and very sick when that was taken unless they were told. On a related note, I’ve redone her slideshow so that it is shorter and has a better soundtrack.

While we’re at the beach, I’ll do a calibration ride for the Shasta Super Century. It will be interesting to see how that works out. On one hand, I’m riding much less than I have in the past and my cruising speeds are way down. However, I actually feel pretty good so I may be fine so long as I’m not in denial.

On weekdays, I try to to do something that will help me prepare, and every Saturday for the past 4 weeks, I’ve been climbing well over 10,000 feet by ascending Mary’s Peak three times. That may sound like a lot, but that level of preparation is barely adequate for the Shasta and marginal at best for the Everest Challenge.

However, I have some new wheels and gearing that should make a significant difference. Plus I have some ideas for how to motivate myself when things get difficult. On these tough rides, you need some strength and endurance, but it’s actually the mental part that’s hardest.

As you can imagine, Shirley and I are very upset over losing Keiko. The house is just so empty and it will never be the same again. Today, we don’t feel like doing anything, but one of the things I have been doing is looking at pictures of Keiko as well as the very few video clips of her.

Keiko was an incredibly strong dog, but her decline was gradual enough that we couldn’t see it ourselves. It wasn’t until I saw this video of her opening presents in January that I realized how bad things had gotten.

When this footage was taken, I was depressed because Keiko looked terrible and the energy just wasn’t there. Looking at it today, though, she looks great. She’s not her old wild self, but she’s playful and happy.

A few months earlier, but still after Keiko was given her terminally ill diagnosis, this video was taken. Keep in mind that this is only a short excerpt. No one watching this could guess she were sick or blind.

Especially over the past couple weeks, the spark had just been gone. She wouldn’t even get up when we came home from work or her favorite people visited. But since we’ve been through multiple instances where she recovered from the brink, we felt we had to give her a chance to recover. Seeing that video makes me glad we didn’t wait longer.

People have been very understanding and kind through this situation. Just in case you bump into one of us and aren’t sure what to say or do, just be your normal self. We remember Keiko fondly, and one of our favorite topics hasn’t suddenly become taboo. We want to dogsit for others because the happiness dogs carry with them is contagious.

And if you need us to help you with anything, we’re happy to. The only thing we shouldn’t do is stew in our own juices and go insane. Keiko is not the first dog I’ve lost to cancer. Almost 30 years ago, I was heartbroken when it took Nappy. I still think of her frequently just as I do of anyone or any great dog that’s touched my life.

It’s really late and in a few hours, I have to say goodbye to Keiko forever. I’m not even going to try to explain what that means to me. If you really need to know, one of the neighborhood girls asked me when it would stop hurting when she thought about her dog Squeaker (he passed away a few months ago).

I told her the truth. You get used to things and the past fades with time, but the pain never goes away completely. It’s not a matter living in the past, but understanding that once you lose something special and irreplaceable, all you can do is cherish the experience you had.

I’ve never believed in navigating the highway of life with one hand on the wheel, and Keiko’s full throttle attitude, her enthusiasm, and sense of fun made her popular with almost everyone. Despite being a very playful girl, she could be serious too. I’ve been in some pretty severe dogfights, but I will always be in awe of the raw power and focus she could summon when she thought we were in real danger. As Winston Churchill famously put it, what counts isn’t the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.

Anyway, I know nothing about videos, but here’s my first attempt ever to string together some pictures. The lyrics come from a different context, but if you ignore the first stanza, the message is surprisingly appropriate.