Back Yard Memories
Lowell L. Getz
I have just returned from the Meadows Animal Hospital with the body of our
pet Chihuahua, Scooter, who had been with us fifteen and a half years. Scooter was
unable to stand on his own this morning, having suffered a stroke brought on by a
malfunctioning heart valve. As hard as it was, we had to let him go. Scooter now
rests in the back yard beside the graves of our previous five pet dogs. I know it most
likely is against a city ordinance to bury pets in the yard, but all had meant so much
to us, we could not bring ourselves to have them cremated and only their ashes
buried or scattered. A self-willed sense of sentimentality, perhaps, but what is, is.
I wrapped Scooter’s limp body in a plastic bag, his normally alert, now
forlornly quiet, head dangling as if connected to his shoulders by a soft pliant sock,
and carefully laid him to rest alongside the others. Of all the doleful emotions I have
felt as I buried our pets, the one I simply cannot shake, is the sight and feel of their
limp, dangling heads. These heavy-hearted sensations remain forever ingrained in
my mind. As I covered Scooter, through watery eyes, my mind went wandering back
in time. A flood of reminisces of Scooter, and of the others lying beside him,
reawakened the same empty sadness I felt while placing each of the others in the
ground.
My emotions are not unique. Most people have a feeling of utter desolation
over loss of their pets, whether they be dogs, cats, ferrets, or any other animal with
which they have bonded. The lovable mannerisms of our dogs were no more
endearing than those of others’ pets. Our dogs were not exceptional in this respect.
We all have reminiscences of the captivatingly cute behaviors of our pets. But, these
were our dogs and our memories.
They sustained us with comforting
companionship for so many years. Each in its own way made our lives much more
enjoyable. Perhaps I can repay what they did for us, by recording some of my
memories of each of them. What follow are a few of the misty-eyed visions that
swept through my mind as I laid Scooter to rest in the ground and carefully covered
him over.
Lady
Lady, the first to be placed in the yard, came to us while we were still at the
University of Connecticut. We bought her, as a small pup, for our daughters, who at
that time were seven and three years old. I picked Lady up one late December
evening and kept her with me in my office on campus until the girls had gone to bed.
Every few minutes Lady peed on my office floor, much to the chagrin of, the
janitress, Merna, who kindly cleaned it up each time. The girls were all smiles the
next morning. Their first pet.
Our housing area in Storrs was located in a densely wooded area. Dogs
wandered as they pleased. No fences, no leash laws. When the weather was warm
the neighborhood dogs routinely congregated daily at the fire pond to swim and
play in the water. Lady would still be soaking wet, when she came back in the
house. A bit messy on the carpets, but she was family and we were forgiving. Lady
also tagged along with the girls as they played with their friends. In summer, the
neighborhood kids often put on plays in the Pike’s garage, the garage door serving
as the “stage curtain.” One year they staged a wedding with Lady as a member of
the cast. Unfortunately, while the kids were performing the wedding scene in front,
in back Lady was eating the wedding cake they had made for the reception scene.
That was Lady’s first and last “stage” role.
My research required that I maintain a large breeding colony of white-footed
mice, a native forest species. Every so often the colony became so large, I had to get
rid of extra mice, sometimes a couple dozen or so. I dumped the excess mice from
the breeding cages into a large garbage can and turned them loose in the woods
behind the house. One of the times I did so, a mouse apparently died and Lady
found the dried up carcass. For days she walked around the house with the tail of
the dead mouse sticking out of her mouth and a proud smug look on her face. Lady
would not let us take it away from her, ducking behind furniture or running upstairs
to keep us from catching her. If we approached while she was eating, Lady quickly
scooped the mouse up from beside the dish and made a run for it. Finally, one night
she laid it down to eat and did not see me in time, as I ran up behind her and
grabbed the dead mouse before she could pick it up.
When we went on 15-month sabbatical leave at the University of Wisconsin,
we left Lady with one of my graduate students. The first night Lyle had her, she
tangled with a skunk. There followed a number of baths that only barely lessened
the penetrating musky odor. A few days later he took Lady with him on a hike along
a nearby forest trail. Within minutes, she had a run-in with a porcupine, resulting in
over 20 quills embedded in her mouth and face, necessitating a trip to the vet to
have them removed. Lyle thought he was in for a long year. He took her rabbit
hunting, with little success. When they first started out, Lady would run so far
ahead that she scared up the rabbits well beyond the range of Lyle’s shotgun. Soon
becoming tired, she trotted at his heels, of no use in jumping up rabbits. Lady was
not a hunting dog. But, she quickly settled in and became a part of their family for
the year.
When we moved to Illinois the next summer, we shipped Lady by plane so
she would not have to be confined in a car for three days. In Champaign, Lady
readily accommodated to living in a more controlled situation, a fenced-in back
yard. We placed a doghouse in the back yard for her to sleep in, but often on the
nights we left her out (most of the time she slept in the house) in the autumn, she
made a bed in the fallen leaves outside the doghouse. In retrospect, we cannot
believe we left her out in the back yard all night. Our other dogs slept only in the
house, usually in our bedroom.
Eventually, when Lady was just over 14 years old she started showing her
age, slowly becoming weaker and weaker. One day when Mary Ruth arrived home
for lunch, Lady was dead on the floor of the downstairs bathroom. As saddened as
we felt at the time, Lady was the only one of our dogs to spare us a heartbreaking
trip to the Vet.
Paddy
A month after Lady left us, Mary Ruth’s sister felt she needed another pet to
take Lady’s place. She gave Mary Ruth a five-month old black Peekapoo that had
been housed in an outdoor pen from the time he was born. He had had no close
interaction with humans. Mary Ruth named him Paddy and in spite of the lack of
prior human socialization, the two immediately bonded.
That fall, when our
youngest daughter, Allison, left for college at the University of Michigan, Paddy filled
our “empty nest”, becoming Mary Ruth’s surrogate child. She walked from room to
room, wistfully hugging Paddy. When she put him down, Patty closely followed at
her heels everywhere she went in the house. When Mary Ruth sat on the sofa,
Paddy would lie pressed up against her hip. When Mary Ruth returned to the house,
after having been gone for even so short a time as to check the mailbox, Paddy went
wild, running and dancing around her. One would have thought she had been away
for weeks.
Paddy had a “thing” for the multitude of squirrels that frequented our back
yard. Some time ago, I had given in to the incursions of squirrels at the bird feeder
and installed several ear corn squirrel feeders in the back yard. Squirrels came from
all over the neighborhood to feed. Each time we let Paddy out, he would frantically
charge any squirrel on the ground. Most often the squirrel barely made it up a tree
as Paddy skidded to a halt at the base of the trunk. Only once did he catch one, but
he kept trying. The squirrels soon came to recognize what was coming at them the
moment they heard the squeaking of the sliding back door opening and headed fullout for a tree, with Paddy only inches behind.
All was well between Mary Ruth and Paddy until the first Christmas, nine
months after she got him. Christmas Eve, when wrapping packages on an ironing
board, Mary Ruth accidently dropped a heavy Scotch tape dispenser onto Paddy’s
back. The way he acted we thought it had broken his back. Paddy floundered
around, screeching and dragging his hind legs straight out behind him. We finally
corralled him and wrapped him a blanket. After several minutes he recovered. His
back was OK. But, Paddy’s behavior changed dramatically, most likely a latent
response to his early isolation.
From then on, if Paddy was surprised or felt intimidated, he would attack
ferociously anyone in the vicinity, including Mary Ruth. Almost 40 years later, Mary
Ruth still has scars on her legs and hands from his bites. On one occasion Paddy bit
her hand so badly, it became infected, requiring a visit to the ER. One morning
when I went to pick him up in the bedroom to take him to his crate downstairs, he
ducked under a chair. I moved the chair to the right to get him. He moved with the
chair. I moved it to the left. Same result. So, I picked up the chair. Bad move.
Paddy started bouncing up, as if on a trampoline, biting me on the hands as he did
so. Once, Paddy “treed” our oldest daughter, Colleen, on a kitchen chair when she
came up behind him too rapidly. She grabbed a “fraternity paddle” off the wall,
using it to ward him off. Then there was the time I was sitting next to Mary Ruth on
the sofa as she held Paddy on her lap. She asked me to pet him. Well aware that I
most likely would be bitten, I said “No.” She insisted, saying “Touch him, Willy (her
nickname for me), just touch him.” I did. He did.
Paddy also was a fanatic over stuffed toys, vigorously shaking and tossing
them about. He had his pet stuffed toy dog that he constantly tossed about, chased
and chewed upon. When Allison got a blonde Cocker Spaniel, pup, (see the next
account) we were afraid Paddy would think she was a stuffed toy and shake her to
death. We kept them apart until Allison took her to Ann Arbor when she went back
to school. When we took Farnsworth as “our dog” after she was grown, the two of
them got along fine, becoming the best of friends.
The years passed quickly. Finally, there came the morning Paddy could not
stand up. He became ferocious when we tried to pick him up. There was nothing to
do but slide him in a basket and take him to the Vet. Within an hour it was all over
and Paddy joined Lady in the back yard. I put his favorite stuffed toy dog next to his
mouth as I wrapped him in a plastic bag.
Farnsworth
When Allison, was ready to return to Ann Arbor for her senior year at the
University of Michigan, she was afraid she would be lonesome. So as to have
company, she bought a five-week old blonde Cocker Spaniel to take with her,
naming her Farnsworth. She kept Farnsworth with her in the basement apartment
of the house she shared with five students. Now and then Allison took Farnsworth
to class with her. Unfortunately, she absorbed none of the intellectual acumen
attributed to the University of Michigan, remaining lovable, but anything other than
“bright.”
The next fall Allison began a full-time position with Motorola in Chicago and
could not keep Farnsworth. Thus, she became our third dog. In contrast to Paddy,
around whom we had to be careful so as to avoid being bitten, Farnsworth was most
serene and compliant. Her “thing” was attachment to a tennis ball, one from which
she had immediately stripped off all the fuzz, down to the bare slick rubber.
Farnsworth carried “her ball” around, constantly chewing on it. In short order the
ball split and was broken into several pieces. A replacement ball was given her,
which she immediately stripped clean of its fuzz. This one then became her
“constant companion.”
The second ball met a similar fate to that of the first. Then a problem arose.
When I gave her a replacement ball (same brand/model), the fuzz was attached
differently and could not be chewed off. Farnsworth would not accept it, asking for
the old broken ball. So, I placed a golf ball inside the split tennis ball, filled the
remaining cavity with paper and epoxy-glued the pieces together, holding them in
place with masking tape until the glue dried. The resulting ball, feeling like a heavy
piece of solid hard rubber that smelled and undoubtedly tasted like epoxy glue, in
no way at all resembled a tennis ball. But, Farnsworth was happy and carried it
around with her the rest of her life.
Farnsworth, however, would chase and catch other fuzzy tennis balls. She
liked to have “infield pop fly practice” in the back yard. When I threw the ball high
up in the air, Farnsworth would dance around, head upward, following the ball up
and catching it on the way down. Clomp! We also had “infield ground ball practice”
in the family room. I bounced the ball off the face of the fireplace and Farnsworth
scooped it us as it came careening back toward her. Clomp. We finally had to quit
doing this, however, as all too often I hit the edge of the hearth causing the ball to go
straight up at the mantle, sometimes hitting the old heirloom (great grandmother’s)
glass coal oil lamp. Had to stop before we broke it.
I could make Farnsworth cry like a baby by starting to whine and act as if I
were crying. She, too, would start crying. The louder I cried, the louder she would
cry, until she ended up literally screeching. Mary Ruth did not appreciate the fake
hysteria so we would have to cut short our duet. Farnsworth not only would bark
on command, but I could control the volume of her barks. I would tell her to bark
and then start telling her to be more and more quiet, by lowering my voice and
holding two fingers closer and closer together. She would eventually bark so quietly
that you had to look closely to see that the edges of her lips were barely puffing
outward. After getting her so quiet, I would say loudly, “bark” and Farnsworth
would bark full volume. Our attachment to each other became intense. She was my
dog.
When Farnsworth was only slightly over twelve years old, her hips gave out
completely early one morning. For several weeks it had become harder and harder
for her to stand up. She struggled to walk and was in obvious pain. That morning
she could not rise from a sitting position. It was a quick emotional trip to the Vet to
ensure she did not suffer more. Farnsworth joined Lady and Patty that morning.
When I wrapped her in a plastic bag and placed her in the “grave”, I put her skinned
tennis ball at the tip of her nose.
Molly and Murphy
Murphy on the left; Molly on the right.
A week or so after Farnsworth was gone, Allison called us late at night from
her home in Chicago to tell us about two “adorable black and white Cocker Spaniel
pups” she had seen in a pet store, while on a business trip to Dallas. She said they
would be ideal pets for us. So as not to seem overly contradictory, we agreed they
sounded nice, a simple token gesture to mollify Allison. After all, they were in Dallas
and Allison was in Chicago. When we lost Farnsworth, we had decided we did not
want any more pets. Too many hairs in the house and did not want to go through
the trauma of having to let them go when they became old.
The next week, we got another late night call from Allison. She was back in
Dallas! “Dad, the pups are still here! You have to have them.” We told her in no
uncertain terms that we could not have any more pets. She grunted disgustedly and
hung up. A few minutes later she called again, describing how cute they were and
that we really should let her get them for us. Again, we made the same argument
and again she hung up. A few minutes later we went through the same routine. This
went on for at least five calls. Finally, around 1:30 AM, in order to get some sleep,
we gave in and told her “OK, go ahead and buy them.” Now I know why
interrogators use sleep deprivation as a means to get their subjects to spill
everything they know.
Allison purchased the two pups early the next morning and picked them up
late that evening on her way to the airport. We did get some sort of revenge,
however. The dogs pooped all over their cage during the night flight to Chicago. As
a result, because of the God-awful stench, Allison had a difficult time finding a taxi so
late at night that would take her home. Finally she paid double fare and rode with
the windows down. It was a cold mid December night. The next weekend she
brought them down. We named them Molly and Murphy and the fun began.
As anyone who has house-trained a dog realizes, there are big-time problems
involved in doing so with two dogs at the same time, and in the winter no less. After
numerous “accidents” and innumerable lengthy sessions on leashes out in the cold
and snow, Molly and Murphy eventually got it right. The main problem thereafter
was the two fought like mad over every little thing. They would fight over toys,
treats or simply for the want to something to do. We spent countless hours in the
evenings keeping the two apart on the sofa, with a pillow in between as we tried to
feed them chew sticks so as to bond with them. Molly and Murphy spent most of the
time trying to get over the pillow and at the other’s chew stick. Eventually, they got
over this phase. From then on, we could not separate Molly from Murphy. She
wanted to be next to him, no matter.
Because we could get neither Molly nor Murphy to respond to commands,
someone proposed we enroll them in an obedience school. We agreed and signed
them up. We have had better ideas. Although it sounded good at the time,
obedience school was a disaster. When it was Murphy’s turn to perform, Molly
would not remain still, howling and struggling to accompany him. Most disruptive
to the class. The teacher had us move to opposite ends of the long classroom, Mary
Ruth handling Molly and me, Murphy. Did not work. Molly simply let out a
continuous mournful howl, wanting to go to Murphy. Mary Ruth had to clamp
Molly’s jaws shut to keep her quiet. When it was Molly’s turn to perform, she only
looked to see where Murphy was and what he was doing, not attempting to follow
the prescribed commands. She never learned to obey any command. Murphy, on
the other hand, concentrated on the task at hand. During one of the early sessions,
we were to run the length of the floor and back, with Murphy trotting at my side.
This he did as asked. As the instructor complimented him on being such “a good
dog”, Murphy squatted and peed all over the floor. But over all, he did not follow
instructions very well. We finally decided it was easier for us to “obey” Molly and
Murphy than to get them to obey us. They became obedience school “flunk-outs.”
Unfortunately, when only two years old, Molly began not eating well,
throwing up frequently and losing weight. It appeared she was not processing her
food correctly. The Vet prescribed a special diet, but this did not improve her
condition. We took her the University of Illinois Veterinary School small animal
clinic for tests. They did an exploratory operation and found that her hepatic portal
system was malformed. The digested food was not being processed by the liver. We
kept her on the special diet, but within a very few weeks, she grew so weak we had
to take her back to the clinic. The doctors worked with her for a week, to no avail.
On a bright sunny Sunday morning, barely two years old, we had to let her go. Molly
joined Lady, Patty and Farnsworth in the back yard.
For the week Molly was at the Vet clinic, Murphy slept in their usual crate
downstairs without complaint. The night after I brought Molly home and buried her
in the back yard, Murphy cried a most sad, mournful howl when we put him in the
crate, continuing doing so long after we had gone to bed. Finally, we could stand it
no longer and brought him up to our bedroom where he contently slept in a chair
near the bed. It seemed as if Murphy knew Molly was gone, even though he had not
seen me bring her back and had been alone in the crate the previous seven nights.
Murphy did not display any other sign of being lonesome, continuing to act as
he always had, but slept in the chair in the bedroom from then on. Murphy’s main
peculiarity was a fixation on towels. He acquired the habit of pulling down a towel
from the racks in the bathroom and carrying it throughout the house, primarily at
meal time. It was a commonplace routine for Murphy to come trotting down from
upstairs, into the family room and through the kitchen, dragging a hand towel or a
large bath towel alongside him. He would take the towel into the back bathroom,
stick his head and towel behind the door, pull out and trot back into the kitchen,
around through the dinning room and on upstairs. He would make this circuit two
or three times each meal. I finally resorted to hanging my bath towels over the
shower curtain rod so he could not get to them, leaving the face towel down where
he could get at it. The face towel was easier for him to carry as he made the trips
down the stairs and around the rooms and back upstairs.
One vivid memory of Murphy is from a cold snowy winter night. I had let him
out while I went to reposition a radio thermometer on the sugar maple tree in back.
While I was working on the thermometer I kept hearing the north property line
chain link fence rattling. I flashed my light over and saw Murphy sitting hunched
over next to the fence. After at least ten minutes I finally finished getting the
thermometer in place. When I looked for Murphy, he was still sitting at the fence
and the fence was rattling. I went over and saw that a rabbit, in trying to get
through the fence, had been caught by his hind legs and was stuck. Murphy was not
bothering it, simply sitting quietly, staring attentively down at the struggling rabbit
as if wanting to help him through. I squeezed its hind legs together and the rabbit
slipped on through. Most dogs would have bitten the rear end of the rabbit
necessitating that I kill it, but not Murphy. An indication of his compliant behavior.
When about 8 years old, Murphy’s right facial nerve failed and he was unable
to blink his right eye. Even though we applied drops, we could not keep the eye
moist. Within a few months, the cornea became opaque. He was blinded in that eye.
This caused him no serious problem, however. A couple years later, I noticed one
morning that he was bumping into furniture as he walked around the house. We
took him to the Vet and she said he had glaucoma and gave us some medicine to put
in his eye. Only a few minutes after we got home, he went completely blind. I can
still see the puzzled, bewildered look on his face when I took him outside. He stood
frozen, “looking” into space, unable to comprehend what was wrong.
We took Murphy to the Vet School clinic where it was confirmed that
pressure from glaucoma had destroyed his optic nerve. He was permanently blind.
Soon, he was able to maneuver around the house and up the stairs with, little
trouble. Now and then he would go get a towel, but would drop it a few feet from
the bathroom door. For over a year we took him out on a leash to “do his thing”,
assuming he could not find his way about the yard. One day I needed to do
something in the kitchen when Murphy asked to go out. I simply turned him loose,
planning to go out and get him when I was done. While I was clearing the table, I
saw him walking around at the very back of the yard. When I finished and went to
get him, he was standing at the door waiting to come in. He remembered the layout
of the yard and found his way back. Thereafter, we simply let him out. Murphy
would wander around the yard sniffing at the flower pots, trees and shrubs until
tired and would come to the back door and bark to be let in.
Murphy continued on for another four years, slowly succumbing to the
ravages of arthritis, becoming progressively more feeble. Eventually, he was so
stove up he could not walk. For a few weeks I carried him out and steadied him
while he did his business. Finally one morning he could not stand alone. It was time
for him to go. Thus, a very early morning trip to the Vet, following which Murphy
joined Lady, Patty, Farnsworth, and Molly. I placed a hand towel in his mouth when
I wrapped him in a plastic bag and laid him in his grave.
Scooter
Several months after Molly left us, my Uncle’s 15 year-old Chihuahua died.
Allison asked if he would like another Chihuahua. He said he would so she bought
him a pup for Christmas. My Uncle and Aunt immediately became very attached to
him. Unfortunately, within two week’s time, little “Fritz” died of Parvo. Even though
he had the Parvo vaccination, the disease hit him before the drug kicked in. Allison
thought my Uncle would want another to replace Fritz and, without asking, bought
him a black and white Chihuahua with pointed upright ears. She left him with us to
socialize before giving him to my Uncle. When the time came to do so, my Uncle
would not take him, saying at 89 years he simply could not handle losing another
pet dog.
Allison was going to take him back to Chicago and sell him. By that time,
however, we were so attached to him we could not stand the thought of selling him
to some unknown person, so we bought him from Allison. Mary Ruth named him
“Scooter”, for the way he scooted around as he trotted around the house and yard.
When coming back to the house across the patio, Scooter literally bounced as if he
had springs on his feet, twisting his front and hind legs over each other as he
“scooted” along over the bricks. Another dog to house break in the middle of winter.
As with Molly and Murphy, more lengthy sojourns to the back yard in snow and
biting cold. After a lot of cold excursions out in the back yard, Scooter finally
understood what to do and did it properly.
Chihuahuas are known for their attachment to a single person. He chose
Mary Ruth and became as Velcro to her. Chihuahuas also are known for their
intolerance of anyone other than their “Master.” I was an “anyone.” Whenever I
came close to Mary Ruth in the house, Scooter created quite a commotion, acting as
if he were going to eat me up. I could not even stand up from my chair, across the
room from the sofa on which he and Mary Ruth typically sat in the evenings as we
watched Netflix programs, without Scooter charging me and “biting” at my heels.
The same from any other chair within the house. If I would leave the room, he
would chase after me until I was complete out. Irrespective of how much of a show
he put on, he never actually bit, just bumped his open mouth against my ankle. The
only way I could leave a room without being so “attacked” was to get down on my
hands and knees and crawl out. When I did that, Scooter completely ignored me. If I
went up to him on the sofa and put my hand down, he would act as if he were trying
to bite my fingers off. But he would not bite down. Even if I stuck my fingers in his
open mouth, he would not clamp down.
The protective behavior was limited to the house. Out on the patio or when
sitting in a yard swing, he paid no attention to me no matter how close I came to
Mary Ruth. His ferocious behavior was also directed to all visitors. He barked
continuously, becoming especially loud and obnoxious by “attacking” every time
someone even moved a hand. If we put him in the back bathroom or the upstairs
bedroom, he continued to bark loudly, also a distraction. This became a consistent
distraction when we had company, but most friends were tolerant and tried to avoid
setting him off. For most visitors, Scooter would eventually calm down until they
moved or got ready to leave. Then, he “attacked” again.
Murphy was delighted when Scooter arrived. Murphy excitedly wagged his
“tail” (his tail had been docked longer than normal, so he really could wag it) and
followed Scooter around for days, licking him and lying next to him in the dog bed.
He actually must have missed Molly. The two became the best of friends. When we
would leave them at the kennel while on a trip, Murphy would sit at the front of the
cage wanting someone to reach through and pet him, while Scooter crouched behind
him, growling and barking between Murphy’s legs.
We have a short-tailed shrew population in the back yard. The shrews form
burrows just below the pine needle mulch in the yard, but come to the surface now
and then. One day we heard a very loud yelp from Scooter and he came flat out,
screeching all the way, to the back door. When I picked him up and touched his face,
he yelped loudly again. He continued to do so each time we touched him, on into the
next day. Scooter had seen a shrew running on the surface and nailed it just as it
was going back into its burrow. Shrews have very loose skin. Apparently, when
Scooter caught it, the shrew twisted in its skin and bit him on the cheek. Shrews
also have a neurotoxin in their saliva. He must have gotten enough of it to make his
cheek hurt for some time. The shrew escaped. Scooter never again went after a
shrew.
Scooter showed few signs of ageing for over 15 years. Then, when close to 15
and a half years old, he began to have problems getting up from a sleeping position.
The Vet said his heart was giving out and his muscles were not getting enough
oxygen. She prescribed some medicine that he perked him up for the next two to
three months. Eventually, he began avoiding his food, losing weight and becoming
rather feeble. Finally, this morning, Scooter could not stand up on his own. We
knew it was time to let him go. Another teary-eyed trip to the Vet and an even more
painful trip home. Scooter now lies with Lady, Paddy, Farnsworth, Molly, and
Murphy in the back yard. Our back yard cemetery is complete. Our current pet dog
will outlive the time we can remain here.
Only the Memories Remain
The anguish of Scooter’s leaving will fade with time, but, as was for the
others, visions of his images will always be with me. When looking out as darkness
settles on the back yard in the late evening, in the wispy shadows I see ghostly
images of all six dogs, eerily moving about the yard.
Lady is proudly walking around the yard, a mouse tail hanging from her
mouth. Paddy is racing toward the cedar tree barely a foot behind a squirrel.
Farnsworth circles about, with her head tilted back, looking up, as she positions
herself under an “infield fly ball.” Molly is looking frantically for Murphy. Murphy is
sitting quietly in the snow looking compassionately down at a rabbit caught in the
fence, trying to figure out how to help it escape. I also see Murphy quietly looking
off into space with the pathetic puzzled look trying to understand why he cannot
see. Scooter is twisting-trotting across the patio, bouncing as if he has springs on his
feet. Or, is it only my imaginative nostalgic brain working overtime?
Eventually age also will catch up with us. We will have to leave 2113
Lynwood Dr. to move to an assisted living facility near our daughter in Skokie. After
almost fifty years in the same house, there will be pangs of loss as we say goodbye to
where we have spent nearly sixty percent of our lives. The girls’ rooms when they
were kids. The dining room and so many holiday dinners and meals with friends.
The living room where we had all our Christmas mornings. The family room where
we spent our evenings in retirement watching the evening news and programs
streamed from Netflix. The patio room where I “rode” my exercise bike each
morning as Mary Ruth described the comings and goings of squirrels in the yard.
Our bedroom and faded memories so many nights of intimacy. And, of course, the
memories of Lady, Paddy, Farnsworth, Molly, Murphy, and Scooter in these same
rooms.
Saying goodbye to our friends resting in back will be especially difficult.
Never again will I sense their presence in the gathering gloom. Those sensations
are limited to this, and only this back yard. I will not tell the new owners they are
there. It would have no meaning to them any way. Only my presence keeps their
images alive.
Pet owners have long speculated as to whether they once again will see their
pets in the “Beyond.” If so, will we then be able to communicate with them? Can we
converse about the “olden days” when were together? Many have said they do not
want to go to a place without pets. I share that feeling. But, whatever will be, in the
meantime I achieve solace in the conviction that eventually I will be reunited with
our dogs. Whatever the future, so long as we live at 2113 Lynwood Dr., I will have
my “Back Yard Memories.”