and we knew he had left us

His eyes glossed over.

That’s when we knew.

It’s the quiet that gets me now. Particularly when coming home from work. The thump of that thick tail against the wall. My mind seems to go searching for that sound, still.

And in the quiet of the morning, getting the dog’s kibble together. I never realized how much I loved talking to him. Those soft, caring eyes and the way those ears would perk up. I felt less mental with him around. The words still come in the early hours, standing in the kitchen, just don’t have any ears to listen now, except for my own.

I guess sometimes it doesn’t take any time at all to make friends. That’s how I felt about Junior. I’ve had my own dogs over the years, Junior wasn’t mine, but I loved him all the same. I loved him for how he took care of my woman, well, for how he took care of all of us here.

I struggled down to the floor that night.

“We love you boy, it’s ok Junior.”

He wasn’t moving, his breathing seemed labored.

The Vet had called a couple months before and explained that it was in fact Cancer.

I think it was that night that broke us though. Seeing him struggling, I thought he might pass away here at the house and we weren’t truly sure if he was in pain or not. We had to take him, we had to put him down. We both prayed and then promised to take him the next day.

Whatever had happened the night before had passed and in the morning, there in the back of our minds, we asked if there was just a little more time perhaps?

But no, we told ourselves that maybe it was better this way. To take him in on a good day, to remember him in the best light.

Junior’s last ride, a short ride with the windows down and music blaring. The way he’d tilt that nose up and up, catching all those smells.

She said that back at her Grandma’s old house there were daffodils, that’s where Junior was born, and she sorta broke down seeing those yellow flowers scattered around those beds in the Vet parking lot. He stomped through the mulch, seeming to carefully avoid the delicate blooms of yellow, as we told him for the last time,

“Go potty Junior, go pee.”

Then that majestic way he stood, that nose going up and up again, then stomping right down on one of those daffodils.

It was time.

We took the elevator up to the second floor and they showed us into that room with the red blanket laid out on the floor. The room had a window and Junior could see dogs playing in the grassy yard below us. He wagged his tail and let out a low growl.

Junior was a lover, but his love generally didn’t extend to other dogs, I don’t think he trusted most of them, he was a protector as well as a lover. He loved those late night walks, after the tall lampposts lit up in the neighborhood and the streets were our own.

When we first thought about me and my Chihuahua Bella moving down here to the low country, we weren’t sure it would work. We did a little test visit with Bella, to see if the two would get along.

Junior made it easy, but it’s hard now taking Bella out in the yard. Where I still see him in my mind, kicking back the dirt, sniffing the air, and barking at the birds.

I smile now, thinking about the morning where Bella walked right under Junior’s stream, taking all that piss right on her head, and then simply continued emptying her own bladder.

Those two loved each other in the end, Junior and Bella.

Sometimes I still ask her,

“Bella, where’s Junior?”

Her ears perk up and her eyes get excited, not sure she knows he’s gone for good, but maybe that excitement I see in her eyes tells me she knows we’ll be together again.

Back in that room with the red blanket, Junior was still watching the dogs out the window. The Vet distracted him with a chocolate doughnut, his last meal. Then she gave him that shot which would make him drowsy, but still he growled and watched at that window, getting himself all worked up. We pulled him in and she held his head as the sedative began to hit.

We had a few minutes to just talk to him and love on him, but we couldn’t quite believe what we were doing when the Vet returned with the poison in that syringe.

We held him and watched him, the tears filling my eyes as she sobbed uncontrollably. Then the smoke that seemed to fill his eyes and we knew he had left us.

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