
This month I must ask you all to indulge me in a Marley & Me-type essay, as I lost my fuzzy buddy a few days ago and he is occupying most of the spaces in my mind right now. If that is not your thing, I get it, and please come back next month when I promise to be back to business as usual.
For those of you remaining, Butch passed away a few weeks shy of his tenth birthday from autoimmune disease. He had kicked its butt once before, but it eventually came back and took his vision and his ability to walk, but it never took his sassy attitude or his opinionated stances on everything from the treats he would get to the way he was being held.
Butch was a mixed-breed, runt-of-the-litter, rescue pup with an extremely hard head. I can attest to its sturdiness from a time when we were playing and accidentally-yet-aggressively conked our heads together. It was so hard that I saw a burst of bright light and, if I were in a cartoon, I’d have had a crown of stars spinning around my head. Unable to clear my vision, I reached out to check on what I naturally assumed would be a sprawled, unconscious pup, only to feel his teeth sink into my hand. He was unfazed by the contact and raring to go!
He was also known as a world-class squeaker surgeon. Any toy he received would be given a thorough exam through light chomping and then, once he identified the location of the squeaker, he would make a small incision and remove it with his long, narrow snout. His usual time was under 10 minutes, and there would only be a minimum of fluff that came out with it. The toy remained, slightly saggy but in decent enough shape for him to keep playing with it. And he did continue — we have two baskets full of slightly floppy stuffed toys that he treasured and would take inventory of each time a stranger visited and left the house.
And though he would lose the ability to walk, when he could, those legs were powerhouses. He would be able to leap onto our trampoline from the ground‚ something he especially liked to do in the winter, when it was covered by a tarp and the netting around it was down. He would jump up, bound around it, and jet off back down to the ground.
In summer, he had a Disney-like relationship with the carpenter bees that showed up in the backyard. Each season there was one bee (at least we think it was the same bee) that would fly around him and he would spin and chomp at it, never catching it, nor did I think he wanted to. The fun was in the chase.
This is the spot in these letters where I try to tie the theme into the custom installation business, but I’ve got nothing this time. The only thing I can offer is the typical platitude these kinds of pieces offer in remembering to appreciate those you love and that love you. It may be trite, but the reason it is said so often is because, though it is obvious at the time, soon work calamities and everyday grinds will reclaim our attention until the next time someone marks a loss with a reminder to pay attention. So, even if you must put it in your calendar, call your folks, kiss your spouse, hug your kids, and don’t be stingy with those fur baby bellyrubs.
I don’t know what happens when humans pass, much less dogs, but wherever Butchy is, I hope he’s running.