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When you are alone a lot, well, your mind tends to take the off ramp all by it's lonesome.
And that's the point of meditative journeys, that the mind searches about for a bit and then eventually it gives up altogether and what you are left with is no thought at all.
But there is a maze of noise and no-outlets and maybe a couple of look-kids-big-ben-parliaments that your mind has to go through before it can reach calm. It is not unlike playing whack-a-mole with your sub-conscious.
I fix some coffee in my hotel room and take the laptop downstairs and I sit in the morning sun while I cross my fingers and hope that someone in Vicksburg, Mrs. Ippy has uploaded a good ride to the world wide web.And I am in luck. The beginning is a little rough with traffic and the elevation was way off again but just about an hour into it, the clouds break and I roll down my arm warmers and settle in.
And about mile 15 I come to “Tucker Road” and my GPS tells me to make a left onto it. And I know this day has its own intentions for me.
I put down my dog, Tucker, on March 17, 2010. It was a Wednesday and he was 6 days short of his 13th birthday.
The first day that I saw him at the SPCA he was all the way down at the end of the row of cages and when I came up to him he did a very classic Tucker move, also a very common dog move in general, of standing up, and then stretching his front legs as if in a bow.And when he threw his snout at me through the cage and then ran circles around me in the greeting area, I felt it like a shock. My love ignited in the hair of an instant.
But I didn’t want to make a rash decision and I’m so thankful that this didn’t backfire on me because this was the most pivotal moment in my adult life, but I took a night to think about it. Who the hell knows why since I had been thinking about getting a dog for about 20 years.
When I went back the next day, he was still there. And when they let him out again to play with me a little, of course he paid attention to, and sniffed at, everything in the room but me, but then did stop to have a piss on my feet.
I almost wasn’t allowed to leave with him though because when I was ten or so, I think, I really wanted a dog and my parents somehow had a lapse of reason and took me to the SPCA to get one and there were these puppies there. This was back when puppies were common at the SPCA, not like today when it’s all pit bulls and dogs of dead people.
And I chose this furry little male beauty. Problem was, was that this little man had a sister with him, and I pleaded with my parents not to separate them. And so we left with both of them. I named the male Curly, because he was, and I named the female Lea, because Star Wars had just come out.
And they both acted just like puppies and pooped everywhere and slept with me and played in the fall leaves and I loved them.
But one day, about two months later, I came home and Curly and Lea didn’t greet me. And I called for them and made sure both my parents were home and hadn’t taken them for a walk or anything, but mom and dad were there, but the pups weren’t.
And I asked my mom where they were and she said ask your dad. And I walked into the den where my dad was watching TV and eating peanuts and drinking a beer, as I remember him doing after work. And his legs were up on the table and he looked very relaxed.
And I asked him where Lea and Curly were. And remember, this is 30 years later that I am recalling this memory, so this is what I remember.
I remember him telling me that he took them back to the SPCA because they were chewing all the oriental rugs.
And I didn’t understand at first, but in a second or two I did. They were gone. They were taken away while I was at school and they were handed back. I didn’t have dogs anymore, I had….well I couldn't make sense of it..I had...nothing.
And I think I said something like “what do you mean” and I remember a “better if you didn’t know” and me saying “without even asking me,” and then I just remember being very confused and alone.
And so since my parents made this decision many years ago, the SPCA remembered and almost didn’t let me take Tucker, and I don’t remember what we told them to convince them, but they let Tucker and me and my Dad all get in the car together and then the best part of my life began.
So when I turned onto Tucker Road, well, I started thinking pretty deeply about the times we had together. I fight them, I fight the tears hard. And I'll be honest, this is one subconscious mole I've had a hard time pounding down on this trip. I've been thinking about him quite a bit. I think about how he would love a trip just like this.
And I remembered that my very first thought when I got him was that I was going to make it up to Curly and Lea and let him chew whatever he wanted and also to tell him ten times a day that I loved him, just in case one day I came home and he wasn't there anymore.Ten times I love you times 11.5 years is around 5,000 I love yous. Im pretty sure I got that close because some days I would say it a couple of extra times in case I had missed a day.
I know that it's not the memories of him that are making me sad, but it is me that is making me sad. And so I choose to make myself think about the great things that we did together.
I admit to myself on this ride a couple of things. I will always miss him. I don’t miss him everyday like I used too, but I miss him still. And that will not go away, probably, ever. So that is something that I have to accept as part of my life and that is part of my brain that I do not wish to whack.The part about whack-a-mole that you don't realize is that they will continue to pop up, no matter how hard you may try, and maybe all the moles with their heads out is winning, not the other way around.
I still do come home and wonder where he is.
There wasn’t a worst day in my life than the day that I held him in my arms and snuggled him and let the poison take his pain away. And the instant he was gone, the instant I felt his breathing stop, I stood up quite quickly and I stepped over him, and I walked out the door.
I left him there on the cold tile floor, but he was gone by then, and his last moment, well, in his last moment, he heard me whispering to him and he felt my hands on him.
I didn’t think I was going to make it through that one. And when you’re in a place of complete and utter sorrow and its not melodramatic and its on a completely new level of sad than you have previously known, your brain, it's on a constant move. Reorganizing, making order of a new world, re-wiring and cutting circuits and it takes a while before you wake up and “good morning buddy” doesn’t automatically come out of your mouth.
And yes, I have some of his ashes with me, right here in my backpack, so we can watch over each other, just like we did was when he was alive, and as we will always do.My ever-faithful friend. My best friend.
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