These Were the Best of Times / I'll Miss These Days

I've really been struggling while trying to come up with this post, the one anyone who knows me or has followed this blog knew was inevitable.

What direction do I take? Do I go into uncomfortable, exhaustive detail about the pain I've been going through, or the slow and awful progression of the cancer in his sinuses, and his ultimate death? How I barely remember the weekend it happened, and how the bits of healing I did over the subsequent week disappeared in a flash the night I had to pick up his ashes? Probably not the best choice. People who've experienced a similar loss will be able to at least relate, but I fear those who haven't, those non-dog people (and seriously, what is wrong with THOSE people?) won't understand and may even read this with a perspective of unearned indulgent condescension. And if I used my descriptive powers to really paint the picture of how painful it's been... well. Let's just leave it at that.

Do I try to convince everyone how my dog was the best one, and the rest of the species just can't measure up? I know everyone thinks this of their own dogs (maybe not my sister) but I'll simply put it out there that I'm right and everyone else is wrong and that's just how it is. He was that extraordinary.

So instead I've decided the best thing for me to do is just memorialize my boy. A few little stories, so those who knew him can remember him happily, and those who didn't can appreciate some of the things that made him so special.

*I didn't name him. My sister Erin did. When I decided to buy a puppy, I had about five names in mind. I was already kind of leaning toward Spencer since it seemed to be such a great Westie name, but hadn't settled on it for sure. One night on the phone I ran my list of choices by Erin, and when I got to Spencer she said, "Well, it doesn't matter what you name him now, because that's what I'm going to call him!" Done deal. The day I picked him up, she drove us home so he and I could bond as he rode home in my lap.

*Back in my old town house, he would sleep on the love seat behind me while I worked at the computer, usually rushing to complete school work on Sunday nights. When the 10:00 news ended, the outdoor show "Minnesota Bound" came on. His ears would perk up and he'd run downstairs as soon as he heard the theme music. As soon as the show started, the host would be sitting there with his dog Raven, and Spencer knew the theme music meant there was a dog on TV. He did the same thing with commercials, but usually he'd charge angrily into the room to bark at commercial dogs. He'd just watch Raven. I think he had a crush.

*A favorite game of ours was Tennis Ball. I'd stand at the bottom of the stairs, he'd stand at the top. I'd toss the ball up, he'd catch it and take off running around corner. Then I'd have to go find it and we'd do it again.

*He loved napping in the sun, but in the townhouse there wasn't much. The skylight let in a rectangle of sun that traced across the living room every summer afternoon. He'd sleep in it, following it across the room the whole afternoon until it reached the wall. The artsy picture of him in my Facebook album, and currently my profile picture was just a picture of him enjoying a skylight nap.

*Any time I'd be grading papers and left a pile on the floor, he'd come over and sniff at it vigorously. I can only imagine what a stack of elementary-school homework smelled like to him.

*If I was on the phone in the office, he knew I'd be sitting back on the futon and would come strolling in to hop up with me. Somehow he knew this even when he couldn't hear so well anymore. He'd lie across my lap and look up at me until I'd gently scratch the sweet spot on the side of his belly with my fingernails, which would make him close his eyes with pure relaxation and bliss.

*I have way more blankets than any single person needs, just because he kept stealing them.

*When we went for walks in the park, he'd get into a barking fight with two golden retrievers who were always watching him from their fenced-in back yard. They'd see us enter the park, watch us walk around the pond, then start running and barking furiously when they decided we had crossed into their territory. He stood his ground so much I'd have to drag him along until they stopped. Even after the family with the goldens moved away, he continued barking at that same house every time we walked through the park for the next three years.

*He knew to throw up in the bathroom, where it was easy to clean up. I'm not kidding. If he felt it coming on, he'd whine and scurry to the bathroom, and wouldn't start retching until he was on the linoleum.

*The first time he set foot in our new house, he spent the first fifteen minutes sniffing EVERY SQUARE INCH of the place. He knew it was his new home as soon as he was there. I can't figure out how he understood that so immediately.

*He wasn't very interested in toys after he grew out of the chewing stage, but was always loyal to his Kong. He probably went through nine or ten of them. Each day I went to school I'd cram a Snausage into the Kong, then block it in with either an Iams Lamb and Rice flavored biscuit, or a Purina One turkey-flavored biscuit, or two halves of a Beggin Strip. His favorite. The magic word to get him to do anything was "Bacon!" Much like it is for me, I suppose....

*He was the rock star of the Foley Blvd. Animal Hospital. They all knew him, they all loved to see him, they would all come in to tell him how cute he was and what a good boy he was. Even his usual vet was struck by how perfectly symmetrical his face was. There were a lot of tears there on the day of his last visit, and they sure weren't all mine.

*My absolute favorite memory of him was back when he was still a puppy. One evening I was lying on the couch watching TV as he napped on the floor beside me. At one point he woke up, looked around, then started doing his little puppy dance because he wanted to come up on the couch. I picked him up, with one hand because he was still so tiny, and set him down between my feet where he usually slept. He spun around once, settled back down, then had second thoughts. He got back up, stepped his paws with his needle-like little puppy nails up onto my leg, awkwardly navigated his way along my body until he was on my chest, then lied down again, his face only a couple inches from mine, then closed his eyes and went back to sleep. It was the moment I knew he was my boy for real, and that I didn't just have a house anymore but a home. That little face so close to mine, sleeping and trusting and happy and comfortable and safe, will be how I remember him.

*As he got older and couldn't hear as well, he liked to sit or lie on the floor with his butt up against my leg or on my foot, for the security of knowing where I was. Whenever he woke me up in the middle of the night freaking out during a thunderstorm, I'd pick him up to sleep beside me. He'd press his butt against me while I'd scratch his chest to relax him. During his last visit to the vet, I held his butt in place on the table with one hand so he'd know where I was, and held him up with my other arm under his chest, scratching him until his doctor sent him on his way. He peacefully nodded down and gently sunk into my arms.

My heart is bleeding bad, but I'll be okay.