Remembering a sweet, good boy
Our dear, old Smoothie died last week. His decline was quick and unexpected, and I hope it was painless.
On Tuesday we took our usual two-mile walk around a lake. On Wednesday he stopped eating and by Thursday he was beyond anything the veterinarian could do to save him. The shot was humane, and fast.
Those of you who read this column came to know Smoothie as a regular character; he gave me material when I couldn’t think of anything else interesting to write. Readers would send him little gifts, and ask about him.
He was small for a sheltie, and a bit “touched” from the start – spinning in circles as he chased ghosts around the house. Often he joined me in the kitchen as I cooked big pots of the brown rice and chicken breast that was his special diet; he’d see his reflection in the oven door and snarl at it.
“Smoothie, that’s you,” I would say and he’d slink away, as if to say, “Oh, right. I forgot.” He objected to my making coffee, and every morning he’d erupt over that task.
At his last visit, the veterinarian asked how we got the name. When my daughter was about 9, we drove to the breeder to see a puppy, the runt of the litter.
“The next sign we pass will be the name,” Grace said. In the next block was an ice cream stand. “Smoothies!”
The name suited him. His coat was soft and smooth; he was good looking and he knew it. All along, strangers mistook him for a female collie puppy, but he never objected. He reveled in the admiration, and the head rubs. He was patient when the four little children next door encircled him.
The past few years he got a bit gray around the nose, and maybe a bit grumpy. When Grace and her husband visited with their exuberant bulldog puppy, I’d send Smoothie to a friend’s house, or to stay with my parents.
As you may know, the dog’s passing comes just two weeks after the death of my mother. The feeling of loss is heavy, so very heavy.
These days, I’ll be doing something around the house and out of the corner of my eye I’ll think I see a swish of a tail, or a shadow on the floor. I don’t know whether I believe that ghosts or spirits revisit us; maybe I’ve just been seeing wisps of memory and longing.
I’m learning that missing someone or something is not really about absence; it’s about presence. They are still here in the intangible ways they always were here. I guess that’s a helpful way to look at death, for now at least.
Every morning at 6:40, give or take a minute, I’d wake to see Smoothie sitting silently near the bed, staring me down, willing me to get up. I don’t know how long he would sit there and wait every morning, but he did so with his typical good manners. Except for the morning coffee freak-out, he was patient and chill. He had the forbearance of a monk – a handsome monk. He used up every bit of the 13 or so years allotted to a dog that size. He never lost his good looks, and how many of us can claim that?
This morning, I woke at 6:50. Smoothie would never have let that happen. I made coffee without stepping around and shushing a spinning, yapping sheltie. How I miss that spinning, yapping, sweet, good boy.
The quiet here is empty, and I don’t like it.