Old gravesite located at The Bandit Golf Course
… and how a dog taught me that.
I am not a pet person. Karen and I do not have a pet at this point, and that is by my preference with her reluctant assent. But I don’t expect it to last too long. I have observed and recognized and even come to respect an undeniable truth: a beloved pet is as much of a part of the family as a son or a daughter. Doesn’t compute with me, but I’ve been around my sisters enough…
Karen and I have had three dogs, four cats, and several unmemorable rodents. We had most (but not all) of these pets while our children were still growing up and at home. Another stone cold truth: if you’re going to have pets, you’re going to be confronted with death. We lost one cat to a coyote (the screams were horrible!); another just disappeared after squirreling a check for $98 out of me (long story); I had my favorite dog, Honeybun, put down by the vet in her 17th year—it was the compassionate thing to do, but I’ll never forget the mournful, confused look on her face as the vet injected her.
But my most meaningful confrontation with death came earlier, before I met Karen, when I was a carefree college dropout hanging around campus in Columbia, Missouri. I had acquired a dog I didn’t really want. Her name was Schnook, and she was one of those ratty-looking terriers. I got her because a girl I found attractive was moving out of town and couldn’t take a pet with her. I figured I might meet up with her (the girl) further down the road. Brownie points.
Schnook was an obnoxious dog. She was hyperactive, and she craved human attention. When I’d get home from wherever I’d been, she’d be so excited she would almost wet herself. Actually, I think she did a few times. And she would jump all over me. I’ve never bonded with animals too well, and Schnook’s excited fervor would wear pretty thin on me. In a few darker moments, I can remember kind of punting her to get her away from me.
Schnook created other hassles, too. Every six months or so, she’d go into heat, and then we’d have all these neighborhood dogs hanging around on our front porch. Every so often a fight would break out, with two male dogs barking and biting and cussing and spitting. Schnook’s most devoted suitor was a big German Shepherd. Not too many other dogs messed with him. Still, I cannot believe that it would have been possible for this huge dog to have sex with the rat-like Schnook. Man, I hated it when Schnook went into heat. (Another confession: I was too broke/air-headed/unorganized to go to the trouble of taking Schnook to the vet to be fixed.)
I have to be grateful to Schnook though, because she taught me that death is not the end. It happened on a fine spring day. One really good thing about Schnook was that girls thought she was cute. That meant when I took her to the park on the Missouri campus, she would run up to girls and they would pet her and ooohh and aaahh—Schnook actually initiated a couple of relationships for me.
Is there anything quite as nice as a spring day on a college campus? On this day, we were headed for the park and Schnook was as excited as I was. No, I didn’t have her on a leash. I rarely did (Dylan’s song If Dogs Run Free was popular at the time), and she usually stayed near me. But she had the occasional habit of chasing cars. When one went by, she raced out between two parked cars and SMAK! Schnook went sprawling, and the guy didn’t even stop.
She was hit bad. I felt so sorry for her I scooped her up in my arms. I held her close and she gave me this look that’s hard to describe—I guess it would be cornball to say there was pure love and forgiveness in that look. Then I felt—literally, FELT—actually FELT—her spirit rise out of my arms, and I was holding dead, lifeless flesh. Schnook was gone.
I buried her on a hillside in the woods overlooking a stream. It’s one of my favorite spots in Columbia, Missouri. And I came away from that experience with an incontrovertible truth: death is not the end. I can’t claim any expertise on what happens afterward—I have my own beliefs and I hope you have yours. But it doesn’t just stop there. I’d bet my life on it.
Good