| Subject: Re: Letters to Samson - 22 |
Author:
Holly
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Date Posted: 13:20:59 09/27/06 Wed
In reply to:
Holly
's message, "Re: Letters to Samson - 22" on 13:19:54 09/27/06 Wed
The Little Dog Clause
This is the longest I've ever lived anywhere in my adult life. My dad was an army brat. I was an army brat. He never stayed in one place very long after leaving the army, at least not by normal people's definitions. He and Mom were in Minnesota 10 years, New York 83-90, Plano from 90-2003 or so, longer if you count the time that Mom held onto that house. She thought Dad would go home.
I thought Mom would find a place there in Lawton, a place without stairs. I thought that until I saw him last year. He rallied for you. He did. But I knew that he was home. Mom sold the Plano house, and stayed close by in a little rathole apartment, one walking distance from where my grandmother lived. Her house was most like home to me. It always stayed in the same place, smelled the same, had the same food in the fridge. The only time it was ever different was toward the end of my grandfather's life. The house smelled of rubber gloves and plastic mattress. And nobody knew how long it would take, except Sampson (note the "p"), my grandmother's doberman.
He had been my aunt's. but she and my uncle couldn't keep him, and Nana had a huge yard, full of apple trees she planted with my brother and me, pear trees, mimosas, rose bushes.
Sampson would get loose every so often and take me for a walk, staying just out of reach, up Ferris, past the elementary school where I went for a semester before Dad went to Korea, to Cache, where your own Grandmommy had her little rathole, back around to 38th, where we now have the Starbucks and the Home Depot, but you can still see the TWA terminal inspired strip mall, the shadow of the space age, when my dad was designing rocket ships that had not yet taken anyone to the moon.
My grandfather could not have cared less about that dog, and the feeling was mutual. He was Nana's. And mine. And I loved him like crazy even after we finally settled in Minnesota and got our first "real" dog. We'd had Skoshi when I was little, but that was a kindness to his family, who could not bear to quarantine a dog so old. Mom put him down while Dad was in Viet Nam.
As for Sampson, I do not ever remember my grandfather speaking one word to him, at least not directly, but the night my grandfather died, Sampson broke into the house, parked himself under my grandfather's bed, and howled and howled and howled. Sampson was gone by the time we went visiting the summer after the funeral. He had been old. And I think Nana had seen enough suffering for awhile.
It seemed to me grossly unfair of Smapson and my grandfather to grow old at the same time, especially when they had so little use for one another. The loss of the dog added insult to injury. Life, having her down, was now administering a steel-toed boot to the front teeth.
Not that Nana would admit she cared all that much. He was, after all, just a dog. And she did want to travel.
I left my own dog, Raggs, with my own parents when I moved to Boston to be with your Daddy. Raggsie was an awesome dog, and my parents loved her, spoiled her rotten, fed her bacon. Your Grandmommy called her "Ragsiedoodle." In front of people.
It's true.
I kept a Raggs fund for years, knowing that when the time came, it would be my responsibility to see Raggs home, if nature didn't do it right. Raggs saved me that trip by slipping off to the elephants' graveyard, and Dad said that he thought he was going to have to pump all the water out of the house when Mom realized that Raggs would not be found.
I was not expecting them to get another dog, but they did. A little peekapoo named "Daisy."
I wanted to hate that puppy.
Mom said Dad wanted her. Dad said that Daisy was Mom's dog. They took her everywhere. She came and visited me in Minnesota. I had her for a week while Mom and Dad took a side trip. I only had to bite her once.
Pretend bite. It was doggy speak for "You're not the boss of me." She took it well, and we've been like sisters ever since. Except that I am the alpha sister. And it was clear that Daisy was a most worthy successor to Ragsiedoodle's spot on the couch.
For one thing, she loved kids. For another, she was bright, friendly, and respectful of personal space. For the biggest and best, she adored you.
You must have smelled better than other babies, because Daisy thought you were the bomb. "Aisy" was one of your first words. When she stayed up here on another of Mom and Dad's side trips, she did not mess with your stuff, and she let you chase her all over the place.
She sat on Dad's bed, pretty much fulltime, for about two years.
You had other dogs in your life, Biggie, Bo upstairs, Chance downstairs, the four little dogs of the old lady with the wool bucket hat. None quite like Daisy. Last year, it was clear that she remembered you. She hadn't seen you in two years. You were like a whole different kid. Couldn't get by her though.
That lady with the four little dogs has been my timekeeper. First there were four, every day, twice a day. Then three. Then, just the yorkies. Now, as of very recently, she walks alone. I wonder whether she lost one yorkie and then the other, or whether she put them down together, saving the last one the grief and getting her own pain out of the way all at once.
I hope it's the latter, not the former. Because having just the one dog left and then losing him or her would suck.
Life ought to come with a little dog clause. The Wicked Witch of the West ought not to be able to get us AND our little dogs, too. We all know it. That's why the dialogue is like that... because the little dog on top of everything else? That's just wrong.
I understood when Mom told me that this had been the plan for some time. Daisy had failed rapidly in the past several months. Mom had been praying that Dad would not have to live through Daisy's loss, and Dad was the only reason Mom hadn't already done "right" by her. Another trip to the elephants' graveyard was out of the question.
But I didn't see it coming. Mom told me how the nurses and orderlies had broken down when Daisy started to cry. They are trained to calm human grief, but Daisy wasn't on the agenda. And I, stupidly, said how much I was looking forward to seeing Daisy.
Mom and I chose Dad urn based on how easy it would be to sneak in Daisy's ashes. We put hers in first, a little baggie of dark gray dust. The lady who did the doggie cremations in town had brought a friend when she picked up Daisy from the vet. The friend had worked at the VA, and she completely fell apart. And that is all I know about the tiny baggie.
Then we put in Dad, and there, for a second, my mother and I held all that was left of my father's person. He weighed as much as a baby, and his dust stuck to our cheeks.
We did not hug. We did not cry anymore once the funeral director came back.
But when I worry about my mother, I worry less about how she's going to spend the next twenty years than I do about how she's going to walk through the door at night or wake up with no little dog behind her knees.
No one to kiss her hello.
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