Our First Day

There are a lifetime of memories, floating in the back of my mind. So many smiles, laughs, even tears. It's been years now since you've been gone, but we had your whole life together, memories of training, running, even the way the snow would clump up in your hair until you could barely walk anymore, but what I remember most of all is the first time we met.

I was young, but I felt old. Being diagnosed with an incurable chronic kidney disease at eight will do that to you. So my parents had the idea that a puppy, of a breed that is used so often as therapy dogs, would help. When they told me about you, that you were coming, flying all the way here from Montana, I was a mixture of joy and confusion. We couldn't have a puppy, Mom and Dad had told me that for years whenever I asked them. My Grandmother was allergic to dogs, and naturally grandparents got priority to staying with us when they visited twice a year over a dog who would live there year-round, getting its allergy-making fur all over the place. But you, you were special. You were a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, with hair that would grow to be just about as long as your breed's name. That's right, hair, not fur. And man, was it fine enough to prove that point. So smooth and fine and silky. Proper, just like your English heritage. Princely, just like you.

So off we went, to the airport to pick you up. We drove around to the cargo area (this was before 9-11 when such things were allowed), and someone handed your brown, hard plastic carrying case to my dad. We still have it, you know, and it still has the sticker on its front like the day I met you: Live Cargo. And there you were, so small, just 11 weeks old, and already flown across the counry. Just for me. 11 weeks old and you'd already done more than I had in all my (they felt like a lot, but looking back now, they were still so few) years. Black and white and brown, my little tri-color puppy, and shaking like a leaf. You radiated terror, but your eyes were searching, somehow undaunted. And I knew, in that moment, that you were for me. Because you looked how I felt. My whole world had changed and I was scared because I was sick, but something in me just wouldn't sit down. And that was you, tiny, so so breakable, yet so very strong. We brought you back to the car with us, my parents piling into the front seats, me and my younger brother sliding into our places in the back. Mom said I could let you out of the kennel, so I set you between me and my brother on a towel. What happened next I will never forget. I watched as your little shaking self crawled over to my side, like a magnet, or fate, and the moment your body touched mine, you stopped shivering. Like you knew it to. You were for me, and I was for you.

What followed were thirteen years of solid, unspoiled, devoted companionship. You were my little shadow, a prince of a dog who laid down and crossed his front paws, every time, without fail. You had chosen me so thoroughly you howled whenever I left the home, always the same cadence and notes, always saying the same thing. Howling so loud, and mind you, you came from a breed that never howls, but no one ever told you that I suppose, that you howled yourself deaf. You loved me with your whole heart, obeying only my hand signals, much to the frustration of my dad, making sure I always got to bed on time, seeing me through some of the hardest times in my life with that devoted, tough love only you, my crotchety old boy, could give. You wouldn't even let me put you down when it was time. Your heart was failing and you had vertigo and you couldn't even stand on your own in the end, but you still decided to go out on your own terms. You gave me your final two hours, laying on my chest, one final heart-to-heart of peace and love, then you asked to get down, you stumbled your way to the window, laid down, and let your heart stop.

A lifetime of memories, you and me, but the one I remember best is the one where we first met, where we both knew. I was for you, and you were for me.