The Lessons of a Life

In every act that we undertake in life, there are lessons to be learned. And in even the hardest lessons that we have to learn, there are choices to be made and things for which to be grateful. We may not recognize at the time what we should be grateful for, but given an open mind and heart, it will come. Today, I have made the choice to put aside the pain of having had to make the choice to release my beloved Lucy from the pain with which she has been living, and to make of my own life a more barren place, a place without a fuzzy friend and companion who shared my deepest secrets, my highest highs, my greatest disappointments and fears, and who kept counsel with me when I needed a confidant. Lucy came to us from the shelter. She was two years old, not particularly housebroken, because she had been kept out of doors all of her life, even in the rain. She had not had an easy life. She was timid, even though she was a large dog and could have been fierce. She had been mistreated in the home she lived in, and brought to the shelter with two other dogs to get her away from an angry old man with a cane that he wasn’t afraid to use as a weapon. Her sweetness was apparent to Reina who was almost eighteen at the time, and we said it was her turn to choose. When we adopted her, she carried the name “Negra”, meaning black. She was black and tan, as beautiful a German Shepherd as can be, and when we left the shelter, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was playing, and she became Lucy to us. She loved to chase a ball, she wasn’t much interested in food, and I had to teach her to bark when the doorbell rang. We would go toward the door together, me barking, and her looking at me as if I’d lost my mind, but she finally caught on that she was the one who was supposed to be barking. Her patience in learning how to live in a household where she was treasured and pampered and loved was almost hard to watch. She expected to be punished when she made a mistake, and she had to learn, I think, not to be afraid. From the early days, Lucy learned that I would take her out, feed her, brush her, and I had to learn that she would miss me, and wait for me by the door and depend on me, and sleep near my bed, and shadow me everywhere in the house. I had to learn to be loved with that adoration that only a dog can give. She was young and strong and would leap into the back of my car to go for rides. Taking her out in the morning taught me the value of regular exercise. When we went to our local park, children would often gather around us, because she was so big and beautiful, and some would hang back in fear, but she would win them over with her quiet ways. She would stand still and let me show the little ones how to let their hands be sniffed so that Lucy could be sure they were not dangerous. Never once in eleven years did I see her become aggressive. Bob often said that having Lucy around was like having a tranquilizer in the house. She was so mellow and loving, that even the worst day could be made better by petting her. Our home was a better place because she was part of it. Our previous pet had attacked food the moment it was put on the floor for her, but Lucy, one of three in her original household, learned that food had to be approached carefully, because it might be fraught with danger, a lesson that we could possibly all afford to learn. Today’s lesson was the hardest. It was that I had to let her go. I could not hold her for myself, but had to consider her pain and her welfare first. Lucy will remain part of me as long as I live, and it is one of the great comforts that I was able to bring a measure of happiness and love to her life that she had not previously known .Holding Lucy in my heart is not like holding Lucy in my arms, but it will have to suffice. If there is a Rainbow Bridge, and I truly hope that there is, I know that my other dogs were waiting there for her to welcome her to that place of no pain. All the pain is left behind, but here there is also gratitude—for the lovely and loving years we spent together, me as your Mom and you as my sunshine, my eternal toddler. I know that as the days pass, there will be other lessons as well that you have left behind, my darling dog, and I will keep learning them, as I must.