Faithful Companion

I miss my dog.

Phoebe would have been 13 this past Easter weekend. When I got her, I was told she was born on Easter...I know that Easter can vary weeks in the calendar, but it's the only way I ever seemed to remember it. Funny. I was sitting in the hospital with Chris sleeping away on Easter this year. She came to live with me on a Thursday. During my single days with the show "Friends" was ever so popular, my group of friends would meet at one apartment or another for an evening of NBC's Must See TV. They helped me name her - so Phoebe it was. I had NO idea how to train a puppy! She chewed EVERYTHING. Shoes. Books. Papers. My students' homework. "The dog ate your homework!! Ugh. I remember realizing that though I thought at that time I was at least semi-prepared for motherhood, (even with no spouse on the horizon) that I was sorely mistaken! From that point on, I preached "Puppy!" to every newly wed couple as they started planning for babies. Seriously, it should be some kind of law that you must raise at least one puppy before you have to take that first prenatal vitamin.

More than once I heard phrases like "a face only a mother could love," "so ugly she's cute," and so on. With her wiry hair and snaggletoothed under bite, I guess there was truth in the words. Living single in the big city, I loved it that she had a big bark. If anyone knocked - or just made noise - outside my apartment door, she'd bark like a 100 pound dog. Fierce or frightened - it was a toss up. But loud, no question. A little over 10 years ago when depression reared it's ugly head and sucked me down into it's black hole, my doctor wisely recommended hospital treatment. I was admitted to a day program. I went in the morning and came home in the evenings. You know, like a job. And, boy, was it ever work! Being that depressed is tiring enough, then add to it all the emotional and mental work done during a program like that. I'd come home like a wet rag. Not that I had any desire to go out and about. Even if I had, I'd have been too exhausted. I would just lay on my daybed that served as a couch in my apartment staring toward the television. During those three weeks, Phoebe would come and lie on my chest with her head on my shoulder or neck and just be there with me. That was exactly the companionship I needed.

In more recent years, my other babies cried "unfair" that Phoebe "liked me more." Poor girl, she'd go sniffing room to room to find where I was and wait for me there. That's faithful. No matter that she didn't receive the amount of affection that she used to when it was just the two of us. No matter that her younger "siblings" pulled her tail and (sometimes) got away with it. She would still search me out and find me. Just to be sure of me, I suppose.

January of this year found her to be suffering most likely from an aggressive bone cancer. In a matter of days she had developed breaks in at least two or three places in her leg bones. With wise and comforting words from my dear brother, I found a vet who lovingly helped me let her go. And tonight I miss her. I'd really like to hear her annoyingly loud bark and then have her come sit on my chest.