The Wee Democracy

For Sam, 1989-2003

When i was nine, i was making my lunch for school one morning in early february, and i heard a strange noise coming from the garage. the previous night, we'd been watching "the birds" on television, and i was a little scared to go out there, thinking that perhaps i was going to be attacked my a rogue crow. eventually, we went out to the garage. what we found there was a puppy - a small, black puppy with little white paws, and a little white tip on her tail. our garage was shut, and how this little puppy got into our garage remains a mystery. but we kept her. and thinking she was a he at the time, we named her sam. she was six weeks old, or so, and, yesterday, was only about 5 weeks from being 14 years.

saturday morning, we made the decision to have sam put to sleep. she'd not been eating for some time, and when we finally got her to the vet last tuesday, we were told she had an unspecified liver disease. it might have been cancer, or hepatitis, but one thing was for sure. sam was very sick. we got updates from the vet everyday, finding out little, except that sam wasn't doing well. when we spoke to the dr. on friday, he said that we should come down there.

when we got there, i saw sam in the cage. i'd never seen her so weak before, save one time, when she had been sedated by the vet who had to give her a bath. the vet on friday told us that sam had plateaued, and that it was probably time to put her to sleep.

i would try to explain how this felt, but i can't, save to say this: sam's passing is no easier than dealing with any other death.

i find myself at a loss for words thinking of ways to properly describe her. i've been thinking for a few days about all the things i'll miss about her. I'll miss her cute little ears - how sometimes after she'd been sleeping, they'd be turned back on her head, and it looked like she only had one. or how you could push one down against the side of her head while you pet her and as soon as your hand left it, it'd pop back up into place. i'll miss her cute little white paws, and proud white breast. i'll miss how, when she was inside the house, you could hear her coming a mile away, her claws clicking on the floor, and when she got to whatever room you were in, her little black head would just ease through the door, and she'd mosey in, looking for a petting.

i'll miss how she'd sigh sometimes, after being denied a pet -- she'd go, lay down, breath, and then *huff* with indignity. i'll miss how if you fell asleep with your hand hanging down, she'd walk up under it, and place it on top of her head. i'll miss her jumping up on me, her cute little back up walk when she was too close to an opening door, her nosey little nose, sniffing out everything that might even be remotely edible.

i'll miss how when she crawled into her dirty little bed, she'd ball up and be nothing but a ball of black fur, with no discernable characteristics, except maybe a protruding ear. i'll miss seeing her wake up out of that bed, stand, step out, and stretch her limbs, her wee toes spreading out, her back legs shaking with stiffness. i'll miss her stinky breath, and her stinky fur, and think about the maybe only dozen baths we gave her, because she hated water so much. speaking of water, i'll miss the thuds she'd create, throwing her body against the door, trying to get inside from the rain and thunder, rather than staying in her own house.

i'll miss the way she used to jump up on me, then somehow find a way to sleekly roll over on her back, so i could rub her belly. i'll miss the way her little tongue stuck out only a fraction of an inch while i did rub her belly. i'll miss her shaking paws with me, the way she'd take a treat from you, put it down, leave it alone, but when you tried to take it back, she'd jump on it, both paws on either side, defending it to the death.

i'll miss seeing her at the fence when we pull up in the drive way, seeing her basking in the sun early in the morning, seeing her roll in the grass, seeing her patrol the perimeter of the yard, in paths marked clearly and permanently in the grass.

I'm sorry, Sam. I love you.