A few years ago, when the boys were still in high school, I opened up the napkin drawer and realized with a pang that I no longer needed the plastic cutlery I had piled in a container in the back. No more would I assemble just-so peanut butter sandwiches. No more lunchboxes, baggies, mini containers of fruit, a plastic spoon and secret post-it notes cheering on worried test takers or temporary social outcasts. No more outlawed Hershey’s kisses “accidentally” dropped in for special occasions. Now the boys waited in line at the cafeteria, choosing their menu items as they mingled and slouched and casually scarfed down their meal. Or meals, really, as quantity had replaced the quiet quality of heart shaped messages and homemade fare.
That and other little signs of times gone by, suddenly gone by, serve as reminders of many things. They show that my sons are growing, succeeding, transforming into the wise, whacky and wonderful young men they are destined to be. They rudely point out the inexorable transition of mommy-hood from headline star to supporting role. But perhaps most jarring is the notion that the joyful, bounding, four-legged members of our crew now sitting beside me will be our last true family dogs.
Not that all dogs aren’t family dogs – they are, regardless of what constitutes a family. They share our existence, our thoughts, our food, our beds, our celebrations, our sorrows. But there is only a generation or two of dog who share our parenting with us, share in our children’s very foundations and beginnings.
There is a photo album in every parent’s mind (as at least this parent has only boxes of someday-to-be-organized pictures and digital files – nothing as organized as a book to flip through). In that album are images clear and blurry, crisp or vaguely formed of all the snapshots that make up the past years of Life with Kids. Onesies and stuffed bears, rocking chairs and holiday decorations, birthday parties and barbecues, disgusting colds, bed time stories, screaming tantrums in public places, and quiet moments captured by chance. In all of those snapshots the family dog keeps vigil. There she sits, guardian of the memories, watching over the children, the beach blankets, the carelessly placed turkey sandwiches, forever in the fabric of all that has come before.
My first family dog was Emma, a white ball of energy and spirit. She was raised by the world’s funniest and greatest cat, Special Ed, who had his own way of doing things, and so Emma went through life as the world’s most earnest dog, trying to incorporate all that was dog with occasional cat things like sleeping on the back of the couch or windowsill. This never worked out well for Emma, whose slightly round, 35 pound body just didn’t stay on elevated, balance-y places very well, often resulting in a crashing fall or failed leap up toward counters or chairs while she faithfully followed her mentor, whose tail would swish in calm, bemused interest as she tumbled to the floor. Yet she persevered, determined to get along and be with her family in every way, and this was never more clear than when the kids came along.
Emma was nine when I brought my sons home, two strangers to her fold, one nine months and one thirteen months old, just starting to crawl. Special Ed, eleven then, joined in, interested, slightly dismayed but always game (and to give him his due, on more than one occasion he patiently endured one of the toddlers humping him on the playroom floor, waiting with a look of resigned annoyance for me to come remove the little pervert and without so much as a hiss or scratch), while
Emma took on the job of mother’s helper. Where the boys went she went. She walked beside the stroller, licking sticky hands poking out from the side, happy to share the neighborhood with her new companions. There she’d be in the playroom, lying in the middle of all the ringing, stacking, crashing, brightly colored plastic things, or perhaps precariously perched on the window seat with Special Ed surveying the scene, but never far from her charges if she could help it. She would wait patiently while these bipeds learned to stand and walk, using her back as a portable railing, clutching her fur as they took their first free steps. She’d walk slowly beside them, pausing as they thumped down onto diapered behinds, until they’d pulled themselves up again and were ready for the next few tries. Mid-afternoon Emma would come back downstairs with me, having tucked the boys in, and we’d curl together on the couch, maybe taking our own nap until one of us heard their waking noises. Then we’d rally, get them up and start all over again for the afternoon’ s toddler madness.
As the boys became more independent, the dog would show them the backyard, all the hidden places where Good Stuff might be, and the three of them would emerge from a bush dirty and involved in whatever adventure they had underway. A lifted muddy shovel, a muddy snout and paws to match, all eyes on the dug up prize or construction project. We might sit on the front porch, the boys scooting their wheeled things or, in one memory, sweeping the sidewalk industriously with their half-sized brooms as Emma, white tail curled over her back, dark eyes shining, mouth open in a smile, deftly stayed out of the way while still keeping all the players well back from the road.
Emma was thirteen when she died, two years after Special Ed, the same year as the divorce, the same year that the boys started pre-K. Her kidneys had failed and she and I both knew, there in that exam room together, that it was time to let her go. The vet asked if I wanted a few extra minutes alone with her but I declined. What more was to there to say to my dog who had welcomed my children, loved them, helped care for them, seen me through a marriage and those first isolated, exhausted years of motherhood, often teaching me what to do by her patience and her willingness? All that remained was Thank You, holding the familiar, soft inner curve of her paw and stroking the favorite spot on her forehead as she left. And then the ride home, holding an empty collar that still held her warmth and scent and a few strands of her soft white fur. These new roads ahead, full of change and uncertainty, would have to be without her.
As much as I’d understood Emma’s importance, I had not fully appreciated her contributions until those first few days with her gone. Suddenly I found I had to clean up after meal time, after snack time, after every spilled drip of juice from a sippy cup. My children, it turns out, were not nearly as tidy, nor eating as much as I’d boasted. My remarkably clean floors had given no hint of just how much mac & cheese, broccoli, scrambled eggs, apple sauce, crackers and Cheerios the boys had been throwing overboard from their chairs and as they ambled through the house. Emma had taken care of it, just as she had taken care of me for all those years.