My Friend, Jessie

I was old. Though I don’t want to be melodramatic, I might want to go so far as to say I was dying. But let me tell you about my friend, Jessie, who cared for me to the end.

First, I want to say that Jessie gave me a very good life. She never even wanted a dog, but when the boys were little, she happened to meet a little Shih Tzu at a friend’s house, and she went home and told her husband. Together, they took the boys to the breeder’s house, a messy, smelly place with seven or eight puppies cavorting on a dining room table, held in by two-by-fours along the edge. The Shih Tzus were on one side, and on the other were the Bichons, where I was. Jessie and her family planned to get one dog, but as the boys circled the table and played with the puppies, naturally they each chose one of us. The older boy, Dylan, who was eight, picked me and named me Mike. The smaller boy, Johnny, held a Shih Tzu and named him Mac. Jessie and her husband paid for us, and off we went to our new home.

Jessie, never having had dogs, was awkward with us at first. One day she put us in the yard, enclosed in a pen with a very unstable mesh wire fence, which fell on Mac and me, and luckily it was a light fence. Although we were trapped, we were not hurt. Jessie freed us.

As time went on, Jessie’s husband took in another dog, this time a large dog named Bub who came from the humane society. Funny name for a dog pound but whatever. We all slept in a huge crate every night. It was fine, we did not mind, it was roomy and we had each other. Sometimes there would be some animal sound from outside that we heard and it stirred one of us, and then all of us would start howling like all hell breaking loose, and Jessie would open the door from her upstairs bedroom and scream at us “Quiet! Quiet! Shut Up Down There!” And when we heard her voice, we would calm down and go back to sleep.

Bub ate everything in sight and not just food. Once he ate all the new insulation on the newly installed air conditioning system. Another time when he had bad stomach problems, Jessie took him to the vet and the x-ray showed he had eaten nails.

Bub was our ringleader. He led us to the trash, and whenever we found it accessible, we tore through the bags and scavenged old food and bones. That was the best. We did feel a little bad when we saw Jessie cleaning it all up, and she got mad at us and threw us outside, which we did not mind because it was a very nice grassy yard, green with fragrant flowers and deer poop to sniff. I was a major sniffer. In fact, that was one of my greatest pleasures until the day I died.

The funniest times were when Jessie tried to walk all three of us at the same time, and we would twirl around her legs, and she would practically trip and curse at us.

The happiest times were when Jessie took us to Vermont with the family. They packed the Q5 to the gills, and the three of us would sit between the boys or on their laps in the back seat. How I loved those boys. And how they loved us. Anyway, Jessie would walk us around the snowy roads of wintry Vermont, and she would let Bub run free because he knew to stay near us. He would always run ahead but then look back and wait, as if he were making sure we were okay. Jessie could not let me or Mac off leash because we would run as far as we could, not even knowing where we were going.

Bub died in his sleep one night. It was strange being without him, but Mac and I regrouped and continued to snuggle in the large crate. Then, a couple of years later, Mac awoke very sick. He could not even hold his head up. His face was falling into his chow bowl. By that time, he was blind as he had lost both eyes, something that can happen to Shih Tzus. Jessie’s husband was sobbing, holding Mac as he passed. I think it reminded him of when his mother died in his arms. We were all so sad that day.

And then I was alone, but I lived a bunch of years longer. I was a bit lonesome until one of the boys went to college. He had a lot of difficulty getting his work done so Jessie rented an apartment near the college and went up there a few days every week to help her son with homework, and she took me with her! That is when we began getting super close. Up until then, I belonged to the family, or the boys, but once Jessie and I started going to college together, I belonged to her.

The apartment was cool. It was the front office of a three-story house right on Pequot Avenue, a half mile from campus. Across the street was the Thames River on which the U.S. Navy submarines sailed from the naval base in New London out to the Atlantic Ocean. There was also a restaurant across the street called Water’s Edge and a marina. Once when Jessie was in one of her drinking phases, she went to the bar at the restaurant, drank a couple of glasses of Sauvignon Blanc and ate seafood pasta. I waited for her at the apartment. In the mornings, we went across the street and walked down Pequot Avenue looking at boats and riverfront homes. Jessie would smoke a Newport or a Marlboro Light, and I would sniff the abundant uncollected poops and the pee of the numerous dogs we passed on our walk.

I loved our drives back and forth to New London. We would always stop at one of the highway rest stops. We would get out of the Q5 and walk around the small grassy areas near the Alltown Convenience Store. Jessie would usually get a large Dunkin Donuts hot coffee with whole milk, extra light, no sugar and sometimes a toasted plain bagel with butter. Then we would hop back in the car and get on the road.

As I was getting older, I could no longer sleep alone in the crate in the downstairs room of our main home. I cried and barked until Jessie and her husband set up a cozy bed for me in their room and they put doggie pee pads all over the room around me because I could not control my bowels. I also could not go up and down stairs any longer, so Jessie carried me up and down. I noticed that she started holding me tighter and she would press my face against her chest. I could just feel her love for me emanating from her warm beating heart. Getting old and sick was not exactly easy, but it was serene and doable as long my face and head were between Jessie’s hand and her heart.

Even close to the end of my life, I experienced joy. Sometimes, when Jessie and I were walking around the block, I sprang into a sprint as if I was a puppy flying through clouds. And I still loved the snow. Once snowy day, I mean it was almost a blizzard and I know Jessie was not thrilled to gear up in a parka, boots, hat and gloves, but boy when I got out there, I just leaped for joy, jumping and frolicking in the drifts.

I had been to the doctor a few times and we all knew I had kidney disease. One day, I just could not get up from my bed. Jessie was working in her study, and she brought me and my cozy little bed into the room. She knelt beside me and asked me how I was feeling. I wanted to say, not very well, I think it’s time. I mean I’m not an idiot. I trusted Jessie to know. She called Dr. Plunkett and he was so kind as he told her that I might be giving that message.

Jessie and her husband wrapped me in a blue quilt and brought me to Dr. Plunkett where I passed in Jessie’s arms. I did not want her to cry so much as she walked out of the vet’s office without me. But love brings out the deepest emotions. It would have been much sadder and a life without the richness of Jessie and me if we had not been friends.