He was like my shadow for fourteen years. From the time I
first picked him up and felt his soft puppy fur on my cheek, smelled his sweet
puppy’s breath and his silky tongue on my face, I knew there was a connection.
When I walked, he walked beside me, and when I sat, he sat beside me. When he
was out of line and needed correcting, a simple “No” would stop him in his
tracks. Ashamed of himself, he would lower his eyes and come and sit close to
me, seeking redemption.
It wasn’t that he didn’t act like a normal dog, he often
did. He chased squirrels and dug holes. He brought dead things home to me, and
peed where he wanted to. But when it was just he and I together, then he was
all business. He understood that was our time and that it was important. For
fourteen years we walked together, down that lonely country road that winds
around the lake. At first, he was so full of energy exploring every nook and
cranny but, as the years went by, he became more content to just walk with me.
Then, as the arthritis took its toll on his hips, he would walk behind me and I
slowed the pace so he could keep up. No matter how badly it hurt him, though,
he always wanted to go.
We would have our little talks; and he would cock his head,
raise his ears, and look at me as if he understood each and every word I was
saying. Oh, there were some key words that he never missed—you could sneak the
words “treat” or “walk” in the middle of reciting “Lincoln’s Gettysburg
Address,” and he would hear it. But I think it was mostly the tone of my voice
he was locking in on. If I went to town, he went with me in the truck, always
sitting high and proud in the seat, watching out the windshield for critters
and such. The only thing he didn’t understand was why he had to get in the back
seat, when she was with me. I had to tip the mirror up so I didn’t have to see
him glaring at the back of my head.
The day I found out she was going to die, and I sat in the
back porch crying, he came and put his paws and chin in my lap. He didn’t
understand why I was so sad, but he knew it was serious, and he knew it was
time to be close. He liked the front seat—but not this way. It’s going on three
years now since she left me and two and a half since he breathed his last,
curled up at my feet. Life has changed so much for me.
My new pup, Molly, has some big paws to fill. She is still a
“work in progress,” but she’s learning. She’s not as subservient as Gus was
yet, but she’ll come around. As for me, I’ve moved on, too, and someone else is
brightening my life now. Neither she nor Molly is meant to replace anyone. You
just add chapters to life’s story—you don’t delete. Our lives, like a good
book, are made up of so many chapters. Some long, some short, some good and
some bad, but in the end they will tell the story of our life, and all of the
characters that have played their part. It’s up to us, however, to keep writing
that story or it will end unfinished, and you will die a prisoner of your own
captivity. How lucky I am in my story, because I have found out, through
living, that life doesn’t always give you second chances, and in the end, it
will matter little how we died. But it will matter, a lot, how we lived.
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