My Good Boy, Grumpy.

            Yes, he really did walk around, sometimes, with his rope over his back or head.  He would bring it to you like that when it was time to play. That was my Grumpy.

I delayed writing this for over a month. Losing my pal, Grumpy, pictured above, is one of the hardest times of grief I’ve been through, and I didn’t want to just bleed all over the page, so to speak. Now, a couple of months after we had to have him euthanized, I still miss him and think of him every day. My first thoughts were that he was the only creature in my life who loved me for just being me, which I have found is quite common among grieving dog owners. A dog’s devotion is unlike any other, for people have, by and large, not learned to love so simply.  We tend to love our idea of a person, who we think they are, rather than who they really are simply as themselves. Grumpy, like all dogs devoted to the persons who care for them, had no expectations about who I am.  Always glad to see me, always ready to walk, play, or nestle down beside my legs, Grumpy just wanted to be with me.  He treated my wife the same way. We both feel the hole he has left in our lives and find it hard to do without the light of his presence.

            Now, though, I am able to celebrate that light for its beauty, its impermanence, and the gift that it keeps giving me, even as I stumble through the darkness of his loss and hope begin to feel the gratitude for that little terrier, whose love language was always tugging on a rope and growling like a beast. He might have looked like a thirty-pound Yorky, but he thought of himself as a Mastiff in size. He was, we think, mostly Australian Silky.  Really, he was just all heart, and Grumpy, who was almost seven when he came to live with us, brought play into our lives. A dog with opinions, I often thought of him, opinions about when it was time to eat and play and go for walks. He was no fawning lap dog, though. Mine was the only lap into which he would crawl, and then, instead of curling up to sleep, he would walk up my chest and lick my nose, standing there as though to get a better view of the room.

            There was never much barking with Grumpy, though he was vocal, interacting with each of us through his small growls and barks. He listened closely when I spoke to him—which was all the time–and looked, with ears perked up, head tilted to one side or the other, as though he understood me—even though sometimes in disagreement. The quintessential terrier, he never gave up on me when my own foolish thoughts tried to force my mind elsewhere. He reminded me constantly that “now” is the only thing we have with one another.  “Now” is all that ever have, especially to love or be loved—and to play tug.

            Even though some disease had hold of him and began to sap the life out of him, Grumpy insisted on the “Now.” He could only tug and growl for short periods but was always willing to give it his best shot. A simple walk around the block became too much for him, though he would walk for miles and miles in his younger days. Even on the last night of his life, when he lay on the floor beside my bed and I stroked him to bring him comfort in his pain, he helped me know that the present moment is where life is, not in the past or the future, not in fears, regrets or expectations and vain hopes.

            So, thank you, kind sir, for choosing me, even before I became your owner.  Thanks for gift of your wonderful furry presence, your unconditional love, and teaching me that things in the “Now” that are the most precious can stay on.  Someday, I believe, I will see you again, and I trust that we will be together in the “Now” that awaits us all. That alone is a gift worth celebrating, as I go from moment to moment seeking only to be present to the abiding love that surely brought us together.

M.J.