Dear
Dandy,
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
You were the best
dog I ever could've had. You were the best dog any of us every could have had. You were
smart and
funny and
sweet and
loving. You were
lucky enough to be born a
mutt, part
German Shepherd, part
something else we never could figure out, with none of the
genetic neuroses common to
purebreeds. You behaved like an
angel most of the time, and on the rare occasions when you misbehaved, your utter
misery at having displeased us ensured that we'd never stay angry at you for long. We still
laugh at the
memory of catching you sitting on
the forbidden couch when you thought we were out. We still
marvel about the time you were staying at
Grandma's house while the rest of us were on a trip, and you knew we were coming to pick you up long before we got there. There was never a more
wonderful dog, and anyone who says it's not so is gonna get their nose busted, I promise.
We had you since you were a
puppy and we were little children, and we all
loved you so, so much. And finally, you grew up with us and grew
old.
And then you got
cancer, and...
Oh, god. There go the
waterworks again.
See, humans get so
squeamish sometimes. And your nose ran a lot. It just ran in one long string, from your nose clear to the ground. And we...we couldn't stand it. And we
shunned you, and...
More
waterworks. Really, I think the whole
family gets like this sometimes.
We
shunned you, girl. We hated to be around you. We'd
flinch back from you when you came up to be
petted. And we could tell it
hurt you even more than the cancer, to have your
family refusing to pet you and refusing to let you
love us. It wasn't your fault, and I'm so, so, so
sorry. We treated you like shit. But you were never shit, Dandy. We were
shit, I swear. I'm so, so sorry. I want to believe it's because we were all still
kids and too damn
stupid to know better. I'd like to think if I could do it over, I'd be
nicer to you. Small comfort, I guess.
And we let you hang around for too long. You were getting sicker and
sicker, and we know you were in such
physical pain (but you never showed it, you sweet,
sweet girl). The fact is: none of us wanted to give you up. Mama and Daddy were
farm kids at heart, and they knew better than we did that when a dog got bad sick, it was kinder to put her to
sleep peacefully, but I don't think they could stand the idea of letting you go, either. But finally, it got to be too much, and they felt
cruel. But then, we acted even
worse.
We called the
pound and had them come get you. And we didn't go with you. We
watched from the house as they loaded you into the
truck and took you away. You were
terrified. We could see you
trembling clear from the house. You were
old and
sick and
hurting, and
strange people were taking you away, and we weren't going with you to offer
comfort, and you must have surely thought, in that
guilty,
doggy way, that you'd been
bad, and we were
angry and were sending you away
forever, and you were going somewhere to be
punished, and you were all
alone...
God,
I'm sorry, baby.
Waterworks,
waterworks.
I'm so sorry. We were horrible
owners, and
I'm so goddamn sorry.
And they tossed your body in the damn
dump and burned you with all the other
dead dogs. They
burned you with
garbage. And there's no way in
heaven or hell that I can ever say
I'm sorry enough.
We never
replaced you. Daddy would never even consider the idea. He said he was tired of crying over dead dogs. I'm afraid I've come to think the same way. I don't know that I could
trust myself. And I've never, ever gotten over you. I didn't say it enough back then, and I certainly never showed it properly, but
I loved you, Dandy. I always will
love you, I
promise.
I wish you were still here. I promise I'd wipe your nose. I promise I'd hold your head at the pound.
I'm sorry. Maybe you can
forgive me someday (hell, you're a
dog -- if I brought you a
treat, you'd forgive me immediately, right?), but I don't think I'll every forgive myself.