Well done, old boy. Well done.

Dear Huck-y:

There has been a long hiatus on my blog site, and most people would think this is due to my being a doctoral student or being busy with book talks and signings or being wrapped up with hosting a graduation party for Sister.  While all of those things were definitely contributing factors, my heart knows the truth.  I typically write my blogs in the order of the story of my life.  No matter how many times I sat down to put this one together, I simply couldn’t finish it.

My heartache was just too deep and my tears too plentiful to pen the story of our goodbye.

I think most people would be shocked to learn that I didn’t like you much in the beginning.  I can almost picture the shock on their faces when I would have to honestly tell them that I wanted to consider rehoming the most loving, loyal, gentle, and affable dog and best friend a boy (and later a family) could ever have.  Hopefully their appalled countenances would soften when I explained there was some reasoning on my part.  I’m sure you have forgotten this, but at only six months old you were a dynamo. So much so that you knocked me out at the end of the driveway once, and I just laid there at the end of the road every part of me hurting after slamming to the pavement with tears streaming down when I came to. Now I’ve cried a million tears since you went home to be with your boy.   

Back then, my heart softened as I watched Reed (and Dad) work with you and saw just how obedient you truly were.  Well, when obedience was asked of you and when it didn’t involve anything that had to do with food.  You were a true champion in 4H dog shows, but in the real world of dog showing you would have been disqualified for being too big for the breed confirmations.  I used to joke that Reed loved you to gargantuan size like the other famed big red dog of children’s book lore.  The fact that your head without much effort could rest on the dining room table meant that sandwiches feared you. When Sally Gal arrived in our lives, your favorite spot at the table was right next to her.  It is a wonder that she grew at all with the stealth of your moves.  One of the things that left me less than enamored early on was when you devoured the faux fur collar from my grandfather’s police coat, and we still shudder thinking about the aftermath of the “What happened to the 3 pounds of butter, bag of apples, and pound of brown sugar?” incident when we stepped away for mere minutes to the neighbor’s garage sale. Your appetite was legendary and when you wouldn’t eat, we knew we couldn’t selfishly try to keep you here any longer.

If there was ever a definition of poetry in motion, watching you run down the dock and jump into the lake would be about as close to perfection as any. You were truly a water retriever and secondly only to loving all of us and food, any body of water was your happy place as you would swim chasing one thrown stick after another.  I always worried that we were overdoing it, and just like the way you would wedge your head under hands for one or a thousand more pats on the head or rubs behind the ears, you would gently nudge us to throw the stick one more time.  You taught us how to embrace life, pursuing the things you loved relentlessly and keeping those you loved close.

Although you took a few years to grow into your amazing self and you never could resist the lure of a “free” lunch, there was never one moment of your life that you didn’t give every ounce of your energy into loving us and truth be told, loving anyone you ever met.  You always desired to be proximally close to those you loved – sitting at our feet, laying in the bed, standing at attention behind me in the kitchen, or my personal favorite as some sort of newfangled iron on newly folded laundry.  To you, loving meant being close, really close, to those you loved. Of course in your older years that loving did not extend to anyone who sat in your spot on what you believed to be your couch.  Who were we to argue with the one who showed us daily how to love intensely?

On more than one occasion I thanked God for you in my prayers.  Your love carried us through our greatest sadness which was the loss of your one true love.  You were simply regal laying at the base of his casket as we had to say so long for now to your boy.  One of the other pallbearers later confessed he wanted to break down and sob at the services and would have if it weren’t for you.  Faithful to the final moments, you held your head high honoring the boy who was your best friend.  Even though you didn’t quite understand all that was happening (because you looked for your boy for months afterward), on that day, you showed the world the meaning of loyal companion. Even though we know you were grieving too, you tenderly cared for each one of us.  Lying in bed with me when I had no prayers other than tears to offer God, never leaving the kids sides after surgeries, and just being with Dad when he needed to retreat to his quiet corner to mourn.  Just like those days when we joked about you being the Sheriff and your faithful sidekick, the stuffed cow, was the Deputy as the two of you patrolled the perimeter of our yard, you faithfully and fiercely monitored each of us as we tried to live with the same heartache you felt.  A truer friend we will never find.

Even though we had a rocky start, by the time we came to the territorial couch years, I couldn’t have cared two hoots about what anybody thought about that arrangement.  That was your spot and anyone else needed to move.  Since you went home to heaven, I have cried about a million tears. For days I turned around to give you a little piece of whatever I was cooking, only to break down and sob because you weren’t there.  And I know that there will be some who won’t understand that bond, but those that do, will know that you were the last living piece of Reed.  Yes, we carry him in our hearts, but you were a living breathing extension of his love. We knew the day would come. Everyone who loves a dog knows it. There would be times we thought it was the time, but then you would have a miraculous recovery, holding on a bit longer because your work on earth wasn’t quite done. We know that you held on waiting until you knew we were ready to navigate this world without you.

You and your timing were right.  In the end, we had to tell you it was okay to go on home. A few years earlier and we would have selfishly asked you to stay, but on that day we knew you had loved and protected us with every last ounce of your energy. Through our tears, we can only imagine that Reed was standing right there with his arms wide open waiting to say, “Well done, good and faithful friend. Well done.”

Stay by his side, Huck-y.  Stay really close until we can find you both in heaven.

Love,

Mom