“Let me listen to your heart.” my daughter said, as she came towards me just now, half dressed, as we were getting ready for the day. She had a stethoscope around her neck and a pajama top still on. “Where is your heart, mommy?”
So I showed her and she placed the little round piece of metal on my chest and listened, a serious expression.
“Well, I think it sounds good, mommy. It doesn’t sound like it’s cracked.”
But my daughter’s diagnosis was a bit off this morning. Because my heart is a little bit cracked.
This morning, we said goodbye to our 15 year old family dog, Teddy.
We got Teddy during the snowy winter of my Freshman year of high school. He looked like a moving snowball. He loved to show affection and being sweet, but most of all, he loved our Lucy. Lucy was our first dog, a Border Terrier; tenacious, protective, brilliant and nice. Lucy was the best.
Lucy and Teddy were quite the twosome. In fact, they slept in the same small crate every night,
not because my parents were cruel dog owners, but because they loved curling up with one another,
one fiesty Border Terrior and one sweet little Bichon.
I am not sure if Teddy thought of Lucy as his mother, or his life partner, or just his best friend, but Lucy was everything to Teddy.
At 15, Lucy was diagnosed with oral cancer and we lost her in March of 2008.
Teddy stayed up the entire night howling. He knew, somehow, that his Lucy was gone. He was in agony.
And he has never been the same.
His sweetness turned to skittishness, his trust turned to terror at times, and he just couldn’t cope with the loss.
7 years later, it was Teddy’s time to go. I said goodbye to him this morning, and I held him in my arms and wept as my dad stroked his head and said, over and over, “You’ve been such a good boy.”, my mom with red, wet eyes.
So my daughter told me that my heart isn’t cracked, but today it is a bit broken, as I am sad to lose this sweet boy who has been a member of our family since I was 14.
But all I keep thinking is that he can finally be reunited with his beloved Lucy. I bet she is running the show up there, anyway. She always did.
They can share a cozy crate and he can lick her again and perhaps, he will finally, finally be at peace.
We have loved you, Teddy. Thank you for loving us, so much, in return.
We will miss you always.