A Friend Remembered

I honestly don’t know exactly why I am writing this particular entry.  I guess it is a reflection of my mood today… just kind of blech.  I’m not really in a depressed mood, but I’m also not exactly cheery.

Over the last few days, several people have made posts about pets they have lost recently and I guess that started me to thinking about my last pet.  The guys I work with have also asked a lot of questions lately about why don’t I get a pet since having something waiting for me when I get home brings a little less loneliness than returning to an empty apartment every day.

The truth is, I guess I’m a little fearful.

Now, I don’t like talking about or thinking about the past.  There are a lot of bad and sad memories for me and I just choose to focus on the present and the future rather than rehash what was.  But, all of the pet talk at work and reading other people’s stories have just gotten me to thinking about this and I don’t think I’m going to stop thinking about it until I write it down.

When I was 17, I bought my first, and only, dog.  Now, we had always had dogs at my house, but they always belonged to my mother.  This dog, I went out and bought myself.  My mother favored small dogs, but I wanted a big dog.  Specifically, I wanted a golden retriever.

I did some research and tracked down a local breeder.  They had 2 champion adult golden retrievers that they would breed from time to time and they had just had a litter of puppies.  So, I got into my car and drove out there.

I remember just a crazy flurry of activity as the puppies spotted me.  It was pure chaos.  As I laughed and petted and hugged each puppy in turn, I glanced up and saw one puppy standing off by herself just watching.  When a new person came into the yard, the whirlwind of puppy activity left my feet and went to meet this new person.  When that happened, the final puppy clumbsily flopped her way over to me, sniffed my hand and licked me across the face.  Then, she attacked my shoes with vigor and untied both.

Yes.  This was my dog.

I paid for her and took her home.  She spent some time roaming about the house uncertainly and eyeing my sister and mother with suspicion in her eyes and then would run back to me, lick me repeatedly, and attack my shoes once again.

Over the weeks, I came to realize how energetic and intelligent this dog was.  Although she was a puppy and had spent most of her time outdoors up until now, she was house-broken already.  When she needed to go outside, she let me know.  In all the years I had her, she never once made a mess inside.

She would get so freaking excited any time that someone new came over to the house.  When one of us came home or someone came to visit, she would make a straight line for the bathroom, pull down the towel, and then prance around the house wagging her tail and literally squealing with delight.  I have never in my life heard a dog make that sound before and it was hysterical.

Every night, she slept on my bed.  At the start of the night, she would be at the foot of the bed.  When I woke up each morning, she was lying beside me with her head on the pillow.  As soon as my eyes opened up, she would lick me across the face.  Every.  Damn.  Morning.

When I went off to school, it was difficult to leave her behind, but I couldn’t have a pet in the dorms of course.  My mother told me that she would sit in the big bay window every day just staring out looking for my car.  When I would come home for a visit, the tornado of activity would begin and the squealing would reach epic proportions.

When I moved out of the dorms and into an apartment, I made sure to get one that allowed pets and she came to live with me.  She never made any noise to cause complaints, but she always had her squeal time when I came home.  And every morning, with her head on the pillow beside me, she greeted me with a sluuuuurrrp across the face.

She saw me through a lot of tough times.  For many reasons, I will never forget the day that my fiance was killed in a car wreck.  The only half-way good memory that I have of that day was her coming into my room after I returned from the hospital.  She didn’t know what was wrong, but she knew something was wrong.  As I sat on the floor staring at the carpet, she lay down beside me and put her head in my lap and just stayed there not making a sound or a move for hours.

As many big dogs do, she had hip problems.  Some days, they didn’t seem to bother her at all.  Others, I knew she was hurting.  On those days, I would take her to the vet and he would give her a steroid injection.  He loved her as much as I did and always looked forward to seeing her.  When I took her to the vet, she would just stoically sit there while she got her shot.  The one time that I couldn’t take her and my mother took her instead, she apparently freaked out… growling and baring her teeth when he came in with the needle.  When my mother left the room, she calmed down.  As the vet explained it to me, she was protecting my mother but she knew that I didn’t need protecting.

As she aged, her hip problems got worse and worse.  My vet finally told me that I had 2 options… I could let him do surgery to correct her hip or I could have her put to sleep.  She was already 14 and probably didn’t have a lot of time left, but I wanted her to have that time.  More than that, I very much wanted to have that time with her.  So, I elected to pay for the surgery.

The day of the surgery, I was like an expectant father whose wife was having their first child.  I couldn’t sit still and I certainly couldn’t think of anything else.  The vet came out and told me that the surgery was over and I could go in.

I sat on the table beside her.  Her head was resting on a pillow as I had seen her do so many mornings over the years.  I put my head beside hers and just stroked my hand down her golden hair.  After about 5 minutes, she opened her eyes, looked straight into my eyes, and licked me across the face as she had done every morning for 14 years.  Then, she closed her eyes and stopped breathing.

The vet, who was nearly as distraught as I was, asked for my permission to perform an autopsy.  I gave it and a few days later, we discovered what had happened.  She had apparently had cancer for some time.  There were no indications of it because she never acted like she was in any discomfort other than with her hip.  She was never in a bad mood and she was never not in the mood to play or eat or go for a run with me.  The cancer had spread to a point where her system was unable to process the anesthetic from the surgery and she simply went to sleep.

I think back to her opening her eyes one last time and licking me across the face again and I wonder if she knew that she was saying goodbye.

And I wish for all the world that I was certain that she knew how much she meant to me and how much I still miss her even today.

When people ask me, “Why don’t you get a pet for company so you aren’t alone so much?” I want to just tell them, “I would love to have a pet again, but I don’t ever want to say goodbye to one ever again.”

Who said that?

It’s Friday… and I find that I have nothing to talk about… and that is wrong on so many levels.  First off, I normally have tons to babble about on Fridays.  Second, I’m almost never devoid of something to say.

Part of that might be because I’m feeling a bit under the weather today.  “A bit under the weather…” what a dumb-ass saying.  I don’t feel a bit under the weather.  I feel like someone has kicked me in the junk, stabbed me in the stomach, used my head for a battering ram, and then thrown me into the street where I have been repeatedly run over by a street sweaper using razor blades instead of those little brush thingies.

So, since I have nothing to say myself, I will just share some things that other people have said… just because.

“If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?” – Abraham Lincoln

“Don’t call me ’son’ unless you are going to include me in your will.” – Al McGuire

“Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead.  Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow.  Just walk beside me and be my friend.” – Albert Camus

“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity… and I’m not sure about the former.” – Albert Einstein

“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour.  Sit with a pretty girl for an hour and it seems like a minute.  THAT’S relativity.” - Albert Einstein

“It is much easier to be critical than it is to be correct.” – Benjamin Disraeli

“Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.” – Benjamin Franklin

“Immortality is a long shot I admit, but someone has to be first.” – Bill Cosby

“I am a drinker with writing problems.” – Brendan Behan

“You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer.” – Charles Dickens

“Karate is a form of martial arts in which people who have had years and years of training can, using only their hands and feet, make some of the worst movies in the history of the world.” – Dave Barry

“A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.” – Douglas Adams

“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.” – Douglas Adams

“I love deadlines.  I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” – Douglas Adams

“I often quote myself.  It adds spice to my conversation.” – George Bernard Shaw

“I get a load of good ideas.  The problem is most of them suck.” – George Carlin

“I am told that I talk in shorthand and then smudge it.” – J.R.R. Tolkien

“It was absolutely involuntary.  They sank my boat.” (in answering how he became a war hero) – John F. Kennedy

“History is a set of lies agreed upon.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

“The louder he talked of honor, the faster we counted our spoons.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Don’t tell me how rocky the sea is.  Just bring in the ship.” – Vince Lombardi

“I don’t think there’s a punch-line scheduled, is there?” – Vince Lombardi

“Everybody is ignorant… only on different subjects.” – Will Rogers

“There is nothing more exhilarating than being shot at without results.” – Winston Churchill

“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” – Yoggi Berra

All of these quotes, and many, MANY more, can be found here.