Counting in Dog Years

Doing some much-needed deep cleaning I pulled out ALL of the stuff that slipped under the refrigerator.

Among the very-important-receipts and must-hang-on-to-them post-it notes was a small photo. I flipped it over and was surprised by those patient brown eyes looking at me.

Bailey.

I have missed you.

My ex-husband’s dog died five years ago. He was grey-muzzled and sleepy-slow. Recently confused about eating. 15-plus years old.

Cancer.

My daughter told me, at the end of a phone conversation about the Brilliant Laughing Grandchild, when she casually mentioned to me that her father was upset because Bailey was gone. She thought I’d known. I hadn’t.

I almost couldn’t breathe. Bailey was once my dog, too. My dog and so much more.

• He was my friend.
• My confidant.
• My companion.

During the Bad Times he was the only one that looked out of the window and watched for me to come home.

• His big Golden smile and happy chirpy sounds told me someone was happy I was there.
• He brought me presents and lay them at my feet (his favorite was Big Hedgehog).
• When I went to sleep he was the only one in the bed that didn’t pull away from me, he spooned against my calves and snuggled closer.

I’d never had a dog before.

Growing up it was something that we all knew wouldn’t happen. Allergies. Mess. I don’t know. Reasons.

No dog.

Later, now the Mom in a house where laughter and happiness was growing more scarce with each passing day; no dog. I felt like I was barely, barely, barely keeping it together with an emotionally absent husband, two girls, and a fulltime job. No dog. No.

But eventually a person gets tired of being the mean one.

So- Bailey.

When we brought him home I took a full week of vacation days. We crate-trained him and I slept each night that week beside the big crate so he wouldn’t be lonely.

Walked him around and around the perimeter of the yard so he would know what was his domain. We taught him to place his paw on what he wanted, not to bark, but to ‘Show me.’ When he needed to go out side he’d walk up and pat the door with his paw.

Hungry? He’d pat his food dish.

Each morning he would run down the front steps and snatch up the green baggie with the newspaper.

He’d give it to me, then with happy tail wagging, eat his breakfast while I had a cup of tea and went through the paper before waking the girls, getting dinner prepped, and heading out to work.

He treated my then-husband as a big puppy. They wrestled together and he jumped all over him at the end of the day. They loved each other.

And I loved that dog enough that I wasn’t jealous when he received that love from a man that didn’t look at me anymore. From a man that no longer wanted me in the house or in his life.

Eventually, that man got his wish: he got the house, he got the dog, and he got me = gone.

(Pro Tip: Don’t sign anything when you are going through trauma. Don’t agree to giving away the house you worked equally hard to obtain because you can’t think clearly. Don’t think emotionally. And if you can’t do that find someone to help you.)

I will never forget the day my heart broke because of what Bailey did.

The day I moved out I sat on those same steps. So sad. So tired of being sad.

This was wrong. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

Bailey brought me that day’s paper… still wrapped in the green baggie hours after being thrown on the lawn that morning. I took it from him and set it down. There no reason for me to read what was happening in the world when my own life was burning down.

He circled around and mouthed it back into my lap. Then he stopped and whined, looking at me.

“What do you want?”, I asked him. “Show me.”

He lifted his paw and patted my leg.

He rested his head on my leg and stared up at me with those chocolate eyes. How is it possible to have your heart break again even after it is already in pieces?

There was no way I could take him with me. First off- it wouldn’t have been ‘allowed’. I had my clothes, my books, family stuff, some furniture. The apartment I could afford on my own didn’t take dogs.

My schedule would mean he would be alone most of the time. I know what it felt like to feel alone and forgotten. Not wanted.

How, though, do you explain to a dog that you are not going to be there that evening for that last walk outside before bedtime?

How many days will he wait beside the door to fetch the paper before he realizes I won’t be there to take it from him?

How many nights will I cry myself to sleep because now no one and nothing was glad to see me at the end of the day?

How many days on my own would it take me to heal?

How many days before I even truly wanted to heal and stopped wishing I could disappear and leave what I saw as the failure of a 24-year marriage?

It took years. It is still, in some ways, still a work in progress. And now his puppy-photo is here in my hand.

My ex would be correct if he told you Bailey was his dog.

But he was my dog, too.

And I miss him still.

___________

Now we have cats, even though we shouldn't. It's complicated.