The World Don't Stop for Little Black Dogs

We lost a four legged member of our family last week. Gretchen would have been fifteen years old this March. Bill drove to his home state of Maryland, back in ‘93, to pick her from the litter one month after moving into his first apartment. She has watched him grow up. She’s seen this whole family through a whole lot of growing up. When I met Bill in Lancaster, Pa, Gretchen was two years old and still a ridiculously high strung black lab. It didn’t help that they were living in a third floor apartment on the main route to the hospital and the sirens would tweek the poor pup out at least a dozen times a day. I used to go visit and would have to keep my limbs, all of them, on whatever piece of furniture I was sitting on. Otherwise, she would be chewing on them. When Bill and Gretchen followed to me to Vermont the following year, one of the most amazing things about that transition was watching Gretchen grow into her instincts. She had fields and fields to run through, deer to chase, streams to romp in. She mellowed out, became less jealous of me getting shotgun in the VW bus, and became a great Nana to Ella when she was born. When Ella was six months old, she had seven pups, one of which now live with my folks in Pennsylvania.

When Bill and Ella picked me up from the airport last week, Bill told me on the drive home that Gretchen had been sick all day. By the time we got home that night, her breathing was labored and she wasn’t able to get off of her new doggie bed. I don’t know if Bill was ready to admit it, but it was clear to me that our old girl was getting ready to move on to brighter places. We went to bed around midnight and took turns checking on her through the night. Bill woke me at 4am… she wasn’t doing well at all. We laid cushions down on the kitchen floor, dragged blankets from the hall closet and laid down on either side of her, stroking her, letting her know it was okay to go. Our other dog, Woody, lay down next to me, his neck draped over mine, watching Gretchen. At one point, even the cat came to lay down next to her. We were her little cheering squad, trying to encourage this ever faithful dog to let go and move on and be at peace.

When dawn came, she did.

We eventually woke Ella and she came down to say her goodbyes before Bill took her to the vet’s office to be cremated. We’ll bury her ashes on the hill once the ground thaws… create a little stone to mark the place.

I had already posted signs that the shop would be closed the rest of that week for repainting so it was a matter of pulling ourselves up by the seat of our pants and just dealing with the day. We gave Ella the option of staying home from school that day but she led by splendid example and put herself to the task of carrying on gracefully.

I drove into Johnson, unlocked the shop and put myself to work putting away dishes, breaking down shelves and laying plastic over counters. Bill took the day off from his regular work of renovating old houses and came in to work with us, puffy eyed and quiet… Charlie Brown having lost his Snoopy.

The first thing he said after walking through the door… “The world don’t stop for anything… not even little black dogs.”