If there's a heaven that's where you are.
And if there's a place for dogs McGee is with you now.
Things I never ever thought I'd do- speak of you and your yellow dog as having been here. Or at least, not you, and not so soon the dog.
I'm not there to tell you to walk him, but you had better walk him. Do you need a leash in heaven? I wouldn't think it would be necessary. But he might like it. He liked knowing he was owned. He liked being our puppy.
My heart really hurts. Not because of the dog, and not even because of you, exactly. It feels like my chest has been split wide open with the loss of expectation. I expected to nurse Gee into old age slowly and gently with all the care and love he deserved. I expected you to be there with him when he finally up and died at the ripe old age of 20, crippled and blind and furless. The dog we welcomed into our home when you were 3 years old should not have outlived you, but he did. And then he died and took with him that whole piece of existence, the one where I was playing house, loving Daddy, and not looking toward anything. I was just being in the life we had. Living. We all were. Alive.
Alive on a pancakes and bacon Saturday morning with CMT blaring on the TV. Alive with the red and blue paint we had picked for your bedroom walls smeared on my face as we decided- second coat or no? Alive as you played in the grass and I dug the flower bed along the walk of the first house we'd all call home. Alive when you crawled into the big bed on a Sunday morning, giggling and whispering, "Wake up, Daddy, wake up." It would take two hours to get you and him out of the blanket Bat Cave to start the day, and there would be McGee right there between you.
He was a dog, but he was also a piece of you and that life. He was my constant. You were back and forth. Daddy came and went. McGee stayed at my side, at my feet, close to me always. He was there when I felt all of the little kids' first leap of life inside me. He was around when I brought them home all through the doors of different houses. Daddy was only there for one of those, but Geezy was there to protect us. He was there when you died. The undercoat of his fur an unwavering home for all our desperate tears, the best reminder of familiar we could find to anchor us on the very worst lost days of the next two years.
And now time and oblivion and circumstance and change and chance and every other warped thief that robs us of the most special parts of living has taken him too, showing us one more time that the life we wanted will never be. Just in case we forgot.
Love your dog, dude. The thought of him with you is holding me together.
