The Story ( I started writing early September before I knew it was time)

This is my boy, Gerry.

He was in my life for the last six years.

He came from Texas. I came from Rhode Island.

He was supposed to be a bird dog.

I was supposed to be a wife.

Sometimes people give up on you,

and you get to reinvent yourself, if you’re lucky.

This is the story of how we found each other.

9.07.17

ALONE: A studio apartment for three years, and then a house for two years.

I was a week or two into searching for an adult dog on petfinders.org, and hadn’t yet gone to a local shelter. My parents have always adopted their dogs from the South, and so it seemed natural for me to look online and not locally. Also, I moved to my home just a year and half before, so I didn’t have any connections to the community yet, and being a single, recently divorced woman, didn’t make me all that interested in advertising my “living in a house aloneness”.

As I mentioned, I was recently divorced, but I didn’t just leave the man I had known and believed in for twenty years, and was married to for 11 of those. I also left behind our dog,  A Labradoodle I had found online, in hopes of giving us something else to love and focus on while we were going through marriage counseling.  (Thank God it wasn’t a baby)

As SOON as we adopted the dog, my ex-husband refused to go to any more counseling. We were “fixed”.

Sam, became a two year old Labradoodle and had given me reason to stay in that house a little bit longer than I wanted too.  I said good bye to him 20 times before I was able to work up the courage to tell my husband to let me go.  I apologized to Sam more than I can express. It’s like a bad country bumper sticker.

I will never really know AT all how Gerry came into this world. I don’t even try to imagine it, because as of now, it’s not important. The only importance I ever first considered in Gerry’s life was that someone turned him over to an animal hospital, and they took him in.

Legend has it that a Dr. Gerald “So-and So”, was on call when my guy was admitted in at 58 pounds of dog, most of which were heart worms,, and he appeared to be about three years old from his teeth. He had no fur on any of his four elbows, and his left ankle has always been raw and red, probably from some chain or tether. He had symmetrical burn marks on the inside of both of his ears.  A “training” technique I was told.

Dr. Gerald called a woman whom he knew to foster/save Labrador Retrievers. I don’t recall her name, but she was associated with L.A.B. Rescue, on petfinder.org. She told the vet that she literally, had “No room at the inn,” for another dog. The vet persisted and asked her just to come in and do a visual evaluation on the Lab, just by looking at him through the kennel bars, if she could find the time. He wasn’t sure whether the dog was worth saving or not; he was that badly abused and close to death. God willing, she agreed to visit.

Blessed is the action of this woman. When she showed up, where she showed up, I will never have the opportunity to view, but she was familiar enough with the facility and had a big enough heart to go there.

The one of two times I spoke with “Jane “, she told me all of what is to follow.

“I walked into the kennel, and there he was curled up in the corner. I shrunk down to the ground at the kennel door, because I didn’t want him to be afraid of me. I held out my hand to him, and he looked at me…a good sign. As I sat there leaning against the bars of his kennel, trying to make myself as small as possible, I could see that he was trying to crawl towards me. He didn’t have enough muscle mass to really crawl. As tears flowed down my face I leaned forward and he gently licked my hand. I knew right then and there I was going to take him home.”

Thus,” an end to a a beginning, and another beginning to an end”, as T.S. Eliot would like me to remember.

Gerry went home with this wonderful woman in Texas, and got to know his first home, I imagine. She had other rescue dogs, and so he got to be with them, in a situation like him. He was never comfortable socially with other dogs though.  When we’d walk, he’d whine and cry at the oncoming canine.  As soon as I could convince the other owner that he was a rescue and friendly and just felt like he must know every other dog in the world, (or sadly so, I’d think…looking for “someone”) he would freeze up and let the other dog do all the sniffing, and the hair on his back would go up.  I will often wonder what he thought about then. He was only one or two times aggressive in response to the other dog.

I saw one picture of this angelic woman. Her home included a backyard pool that had a shallow end just for dogs. Folks, if I win the lottery, I’d do it too!  Gerry had it good (even though I don’t know if she discovered, he hated water, the ocean, or any form of pouring rain.)

Luckily for me, she didn’t fall 110% in love with Gerry; or maybe she did.   She told me on that first phone call (I wanted to know what type of food to fed him), that she “almost didn’t “let him go.” I thanked her earnestly, and tried my best to send my sincerity through the telephone line. I promised her, that she had “let him go” to a woman who was really ready to pour her love in another creature.

This isn’t as easy as I make it sound, nor am I going to dwell on the point. It only comes up, because it made my longing to have my own dog to take care of, all that much greater. It would have been very easy for me to be impetuous and get one as soon as I moved in, but I was 41, not 14. By the end of my first winter in the house I realized I needed to have bunion surgery on my right foot, badly. THIS had been the summer “of the dog!” I hadn’t banked on a bunion “impeding upon a nerve” that caused great pain and numbness in my toes. I knew I was going to have to wait to get a companion, and put off the search, because I would be in no shape to take care of a dog on my own, no matter what the age of the dog. I sacrificed the whole summer for that surgery.

I wanted to really be ready.

Now I think, thank goodness for my grandmother’s genes, that made me more likely to get bunions, because had it not been for the pain in my right foot, I might have adopted another dog that summer and not met my boy. Thank you, Nana.

I let logic rule; just one last year without a canine companion so that I could have the situation that I truly desired. I wanted to be in my house and have a dog help me make it a home. I wanted to be able to run with him up and down the hills of the backyard I bought with the idea of him in mind.

Being on crutches teaches you a thing or two about age and humility, and I am lucky I was wise to this idea and didn’t adopt a dog. I told myself that I could do another winter alone. I’d be stronger, that way I figured.

Regardless, “time” knew what it was doing.

Whether I was right or wrong doesn’t matter. Gerry blended into my world as easy as food coloring to water. He loved being the only dog, not to mention the only male or other creature in my house. It was just he and me, and the few dog commands I had learned with my former pup, Gerry learned immediately and was a quiet, touch -me -dog from the start.  We lived here for two years, until he told me it would be okay if David moved in.

Every know and then I found myself pointing out to David, how LUCKY we were that Gerry is the dog that he is. He is the definition of mellow yellow, and I’d really have loved for Donovan to meet him. The disc jockey in Woodstock has played us that song on one or more occasion with great happiness, and would even ask me how long would it be before I was in my car to get to hear it.

Gerry hardly ever barked. It was only when he was startled by a knock on the door we don’t use, or when the deer in the backyard were taunting him, merely by existing, that I’d hear him whine in pain.

He had dreams in which he talked in his sleep and shook with disturbance, and I’d say kind phrases using his name repeatedly, to slowly wake him from the realm of bad dreams and other worldliness. I have been upstairs in a whole other room and heard him cry out loud. It catches me in the heart and I found myself hollering down the stairwell, “It’s alright! Gerry’s a good boy. He’s a good boy!”

He is the child I never birthed.

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About danielle

I am a rescue mom and school teacher. Gerry came to me from Texas, after he "failed" as a hunting dog. He had NOT had an easy life. I was three years divorced, and we saved each other. Last week I learned he has osteosarcoma. Our world feels upside down...while everyone else is right side up.
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7 Responses to The Story ( I started writing early September before I knew it was time)

  1. dobemom says:

    What a beautiful story! I have tears in my eyes as you explain the back story of how your deep bond came to be. A love like that, a bond like that, will never die. Hugs

    Paula and Warrior Angel Nitro

  2. danielle says:

    Thank you Tracy and Paula, for leaving a comment. I almost deleted it, because I judge myself, and it sounded “pathetic”, but sometimes writing is the only way I know how to deal with this world and my recent reality. Our six and a half years together, were meaningful in such a way, that I KNEW, it was going to hurt me terribly when he’d have to leave this world.
    However, a part of me always knew, (deep down inside), he’d be leaving me earlier than I wanted…not expected. He had a had such a hard life before he got to me. Beating all of these evils and then the odds, throughout so much of his life, just did his poor, beautiful, boy body in.
    It was time for him to be an angel. My love for him will NEVER change.

  3. rikntracy says:

    You absolutely do NOT sound pathetic. You are beautifully describing the profoundly unique good and bad experiences that we all have, and they lead us to today.

    Gerry is so lucky that he met you on his path, that you accepted him as he was, that you loved him enough to do all any human could have done for him, and then you set him free from his earthly body that was causing him pain.

    Tracy & Zatoichi

  4. L says:

    Beautiful. <3

  5. benny55 says:

    Okay, okay, trying to compose myself. Smiling, crying and typing at the same time takes effort!!

    I mean, how could you not chuckle a bit when you told us you let Sam know you were going for the divorce before you told your husband?

    You have such a gift when it comes to writing about Gerry. Giving words to your heart just reinforces the Soul deep bond you two shared….the ETERNAL Soul deep bond.

    Yeah, Eliot’s quote says it all. Your poem says it all. Your words here today say it all.
    Hearing about how Gerry came into your life when he did…hearing the original Vet…then Jane…saved him….saved him for you and you for him…so touching. SO MEANT TO BE! 🙂

    Thank you for sharing and for letting us get to know Gerry even more. It all just adds to the foundation of love and respect we feel for sweet Gerry.

    GOOD BOY GERRY!! And your Mom is a GOOD GIRL! 🙂 🙂

    Love and light
    Auntie Sally and Alumni Happy Hannah and Merry Myrtle and Frankie too!

    • danielle says:

      Oh, goodness. Ten years later, it does make me laugh too. Poor Sammy. I would take him out for a walk in our very small yard, and I could be out there for an hour and my ex wouldn’t even notice. Sammy would sit on the corner to watch the world, and I would lean into a dogwood tree we had, and be thankful for the peace and then wait to see if my lack presence was noticed. I would tel him that mommy HAD to leave, but it wasn’t because of him, and that I would miss him more than I would be able to express. When we first got him at 10 months, I would set my alarm to take him outside at 2 a.m. because we were crate training him. THAT was like motherhood, I expect. While looking for Gerry I chose “adult” as a category, and him being approximately 3 put him in that category (I was surprised and felt super lucky He had a whole lot of puppy in him still.) Writing has always been a means of catharsis for me…and it was my major in university. Once I realized no one was going to pay to read my poems but me, I started looking for another job. Thus, 27 years later I am a teacher who is ready to retire. I want to work with an organization that works for veterans and pairing them with rescue dogs…in some way shape or form, DOGS will always be a part of my life. Gerry, gladly, ruined me for any other second career 🙂

  6. benny55 says:

    Looks like one of Gerry’s purposes is to make sure you follow up on one of your purposes! I love that he has led you to helping Veterans while helping dogs. Beautiful.

    So what’s yiur first stepyouare taking towards that? It can be as simple as starting a notebook to list the organizations you’d like to contact. Just make sure you take steps towards it!

    Gosh, to have Gerry as your Guide as yiu follow up on the mission he planned for you…WOW!! What a team! 🙂

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