Nothing Lasts Forever
I was given some disturbing news last night. I spoke to my friend who was profoundly upset over the health of her mother's dog. He's a 10 month old German Shepard puppy who has evidently been taken down by kidney problems and, according to the vet, has about 3 days to live. Her other dog, a female of the same breed is behaving very anxiously over losing her best friend. We spent a little time talking and crying over it and soon I had to go.
But for the rest of the evening, I reminisced about my favorite dog and one time best friend Andy. Many people out there do not understand the bond that a person can have with their pet; in fact, if I had a nickel for every time somebody said the phrase - It's just a dog - I'd be a wealthy man.
I, however, contend that these people fit into a culture in our society who lack a very specific type of emotional intelligence to understand the cognitive thought processes of people who own animals. For the purposes of this entry, we shall herein refer to these people as - ASS HATS.
Now, perhaps some of you might think that this gross generalization is unfair; and to your credit, perhaps it is. Regrettably (for you), this is MY live journal, and if you don't like it, you may take this opportunity to lick my balls...ASS HAT!!!
But I digress. The original intent here was to share about why I miss Andy and what made him my best friend. The non-ass hats out there who read this probably already know. But it was his incredible character and klieg-lite spirit that taught me so much about myself.
Back in the day (which was about 10 years ago), I found him on the side of the road on a wet, rainy night back home in North Carolina. I was driving home from my afterschool job as a mallrat, and there he was in the bushes...about the size of my hand and the color of a brown paper bag. Naturally, my mother fell for him when I brought him back and he officially became our dog. And since the friend I was with when I found him was named Ann, his name became Andy - her namesake.
An initial veterinary visit to the hunky twentysomething vet - Dr. Libby (wonder whatever happened to him) - at Monroe Road Animal Hospital, gave us a perspective on what the heck kind of dog Andy was. Apparently, he was a collie/labrador mix and we were told he would probably get big...very big. And as promised, in the coming months he became all legs and giant feet. Then, by the time he was a year old, he was as tall as my waist. But his coat turned from paper bag brown to a beautiful, thick cafe au lait and he had a tuft of white on the tip of his tail just like a fox. Andy also had big, floppy ears, and as I recall, he was as dumb as a post...or so I thought.
With time, I eventually had him all figured out. He wasn't really dumb in the least. He just had a philosophy, and it was a philosophy of keeping things simple; Andy separated everything into two categories - things you could eat, and things you could not eat. The only trouble he ever had was when he confused the two. His "eat" list included everything from broken glass, to weird bugs, to even...well, dirt (God bless my mom for the many bags of potting soil she had to buy just to maintain her garden amid his steady dirt diet). Among the things he learned to "not eat" included: me (specifically that pesky femur bone that he like to gnaw on while I slept), my mother's shoes, and candle wax (while still oozing from the burning candle). Furthermore, Andy also had a lot of personality AND (dare I say it) style!
How ironic, though, that that iron belly of his would ultimately be his downfall. When he was two, we had to rush him to the emergency room where we discovered that he had a condition since birth that had gone undetected. It was known as a liver shunt, which meant that he would have to restrict his diet and take medication for the rest of his life (which would, per his diagnosis, be cut drastically short).
Three years later, at the tender age of five, his little system could no longer sustain him. Andy developed kidney stones and they spread all throughout his delicate body - too many to pass and too difficult to operate. Dr. Libby (still as gorgeous as he was on the first day we showed up on his doorstep) urged us to put him out of his misery.
At first, the idea was unthinkable. We would do whatever it took to hold onto him. Money wasn't an issue. We would pay any amount! We'd mortgage the house if it meant saving his life! I'd sell my kidney! I'd donate my own (is inter-species organ transplant even possible???)!
We cried. We fought. We railed against the injustice of it all.
At last, in my hysteria, Dr. Libby held onto me until I calmed down and he told me that the right decision would be the hardest one to make. My mother still tried to refuse. Alas, we knew that he was right. So Dr. Libby let us go into the room where he lay on the table sedated, one by one, to say our final goodbyes.
I went in last. And Andy did the most remarkable thing when I entered. He looked over at me and when he caught my eye, his tail thumped happily against the table and he staggered and scrambled in a feeble attempt to get to his feet. My heart broke into ten thousand little pieces. I couldn't imagine how incredible the pain he was in. Yet selflessly he wanted to comfort me (as usual) in my sorrow.
I wish I could be one sixteenth as brave as my dog.
I had an entire speech that I wanted to say to him as I soothed him back down and stroked his soft head for the last time. But in the end, he was the one who spoke to me. I looked into his sad, puppy eyes and this is what I heard him say:
"Remember me, and remember what I taught you. Life is sometimes hard. And no, it isn't always fair. But keep your faith. Be long on forgiveness, and short on memory. When someone you love comes your way, jump up and down a lot and act like you haven't seen them in forever, even when it's just been a couple of minutes. Lick people when they're in a bad mood (I don't know why, but that seems to work). Never hold a grudge, never seek vengeance, and try not to sulk. Sometimes the people who love you most will hurt you. But they don't mean to do it. They're not like dogs, so they tend to make a lot of mistakes. Believe in the power of love, believe that you can change somebody's mood, and believe that the world is founded on compassion...because it is. And don't forget to say 'I love you'. And say it early and often.
I love you.
I love you.
I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU."
He said some other things too, about sleeping on your back, snoring very loudly, and extolling the virtues of occasionally eating your own poo. But you get the gist of it.
Basically, the lesson I learned is that Andy, like most dogs, loved unconditionally - something that we, as humans with our intricate emotional complexities, are often incapable of doing.
It didn't matter that I was gay, he accepted me.
It didn't matter that I was black, dogs are physically unable to see color.
It didn't matter what I looked like, people should have more fur and wetter noses anyway.
In short, no matter how badly I behaved, how many times I was mean to him, or how poorly he was treated, he never gave up on me. Without fail, he treated me with kindness, love, and generosity all the way up to the very end. How many of us can say that we've done the same with just one person in our lives?
And so, since Andy was the one who did all the talking, all I could do was take his paw and say thanks in return. Thank you, old friend, for the good times. We had a nice run. And I would see him later...
...but not to send for me too soon because I got a lot of things to do!
And that's it, my friends. It took a couple of months of feeling all alone, but one day I dried my tears. Losing someone is never easy, but I can say that it does get easier. And in the meantime, learn to love unconditionally.
I have often said that when I grow up (any day now), I would like to be like my dog. And I do try. Some days I do better than others...but I try.
And to those who look upon us who treat our cats and dogs like members of the family or grieve at their loss with dismay - tell me, how much better to understand yourself would you be if you took the time to learn from those other creatures that share this world around us? Or is that animal still just a dog?
...ASS HAT!
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