I know I'll see them again one day
- col-leslie-pearce-keating
- September 11, 2023
- 387
It’s been a year since I said farewell to the best friend I ever had: my beloved gray-and- white fella I named Finnigan. He came to me at 5, a starved Standard Poodle who was scared of, well yes, even his own shadow.
He didn’t have a name when I rescued the skinny 42-pounder. He looked like he’d never eaten before. I bought him his first cheeseburger that day. We became fast friends. In the 8 1/2 years he graced my life with his canine presence, I knew I was truly blessed. Now his box of ashes sits on a shelf along with two other dogs I so loved and lost. His photo is there too.
Hannah was my first Standard Poodle, a big, black girl with a heart that rang true. Her photo and ashes also are on the shelf. I adopted her as a tiny 5-week-old baby, not even 3 pounds, when my kids were babies themselves, just 2 and 4. She grew like a weed in our first months together. We shared obedience classes, and she became my first therapy dog. She loved visiting nursing homes and hospitals, always pulling me to the most troubled, vocal patients. She also defended me when I was accosted by a man as I walked my toddlers in a double stroller. I owe her my life.
My boy Teddy’s ashes are on that shelf too. He was a big-boned, black Golden Doodle that my daughter found at a kill shelter. The 28-pound baby was my birthday gift that year. The soon-to-be 93-pound dog with the face of a teddy bear was diagnosed with bone cancer at 18 months. I cried myself to sleep before ordering the amputation of his front leg. Six months later the osteosarcoma metastasized to his lungs, and at 2 the vet mercifully released him from his pain. I lay on the floor beside Teddy as he died, the sweet boy who never did a thing wrong in my eyes.
In retrospect those three were my saviors. Hannah got me through my daughter’s Lyme disease. I knelt in front of the IVs I administered with Hannah by my side, as we said our prayers begging for God’s guidance. I also held Hannah in my arms when my father died, my beloved dog who always licked away the tears.
Finn came into my life when I already had two kids, two dogs and two part-time jobs. I needed him like, well, I needed another hole in my head. But when I held him during the divorce, I knew I would never have survived without him. As a therapy dog, he knew when my students needed help too, like the boy whose mom was dying. Finn lay his head in that 18-year-old’s lap, knowing the depth of that boy’s sadness. When a homeless man yelled at me one day as we walked, the docile canine bared his teeth in anger. Finn had my back.
Teddy came along right before the pandemic. My mom was losing ground. I was beyond despair with a sick parent, a lengthy divorce, a busy job, not to mention the death toll from COVID-19. Teddy and Finn accompanied me to my mom’s nursing home before the pandemic struck, and then we ate at O’Charley’s under the covered deck. My dogs didn’t fuss or bark. They knew I needed their strength after a heartbreaking visit. Teddy died when we were on lockdown. He became a therapy dog when he had three legs.
This past week it was one year since Finn left my side. In November it will be three years since I lost my sweet Teddy Bear. Hannah died long ago on Cinco de Mayo. My mom never understood my love for dogs until she saw me with them when I was older. Children need animals, I explained to the elderly woman with diminishing health. So do grown-ups with soft hearts.
I’ve told my kids, when I die, they are to line those boxes of ashes beside me in my coffin with a good book or two — that way I will find my pups when I arrive where I hope I am going, where they must surely be. After they wiped away their tears, the kids agreed.
You know, I used to think dogs were humans' best friends, but now I see they are so much more. They are God’s emissaries on earth, watching over us, guiding us, protecting us.
And so my angels sit on the shelf — my three big dogs I’ve loved and lost, the best friends I’ve ever known, the ones I hope to see again someday.