For this crazy hot summer, my cuppa today and most days is a bracing English Breakfast blend over ice and fresh mint. Celebrating my southern heritage of Kentucky, Arkansas and North Carolina.
Ten years ago, Jim and I welcomed two adorable lab puppies into our hearts. For many years I had a dream of owning two dogs, one black and one white. As we approached the pen to view the litter, my heart leapt with a mix of amazement and delight that God might just be answering a secret desire. We chose a shy, sleepy yellow female and an equally reticent black male. We named them Buttercup and Wesley after characters in a beloved family movie, “The Princess Bride.” Is there anything cuter than a lab puppy? Yes, I say, two of them!
As we put them to bed on their first night with us, I began to sing a lullaby in an attempt to comfort and calm them. It seemed to work. This frequent serenade became one of my special rituals with them. As I sing, they lie down, rub their eyes and nod off into a nap. Each dog had particular preferences for scratching and favorite parts for petting. They trained us well.
Our first two years together were full of “training” and replacing lattice, shoes, sprinkler system heads and other destroyed items. Once they hit the 24-month marker, the worst of the damage mercifully stopped.
This duo accompanied us through our move to Raleigh and the birth of our five grandchildren. Their love is unconditional. Their trust, protection and affection have graced each day of the past decade.
Buttercup’s quick demise over three weeks this summer has been dramatic and heartbreaking. Accompanying the sorrow was a fierce determination to release her from suffering as soon as we could. I am grateful for a caring and professional veterinarian and staff. Saying goodbye was so sad, but the thought of her incurring more devastation was worse. We let her go, grateful for the decade we had been granted as her guardians.
We are the owners of one dog now. It feels strange. Wesley seems disoriented and downcast. He wailed two times on the porch the other day. I took it as an acceptance that his constant companion in this life would not be back. We are walking him more and spending extra time with him in his residence, our screened-in back porch. We will all adjust to four becoming three. It will be different, but ok.
C.S. Lewis got it when he wrote, “We treat our dogs as if they were ‘almost human’: that is why they really become ‘almost human’”. I will leave it to theologians to contemplate the Romans 8 implications of dogs being in heaven. For now, I am nursing a tender heart of remembrances, grateful for the love of precious Buttercup.
