Sammy Part 9: The end of the end

June 2014

Mom and I are on the road south to Berlin. It’s strange for me to think that this might be the last time I see this town. It’s stranger still how much of me wants it that way. Nature doesn’t like to offer clean breaks. We almost never know the last time until after the moment has passed. We’re going to Tammi’s house to see Sam, for me this will be the last time. I need a clean break, even if I have to make one myself.

As we wind down the familiar streets and pull up to Tammi’s house, I’m amazed at how easy it is to push these thoughts from my head. We get out of the car, and I walk to the front door, not waiting for Mom.

“Look whose here!” Tammi says from behind the glass front door as Sammy begins her familiar bark. I walk in and immediately begin petting her, she’s happy to see me but she’s not crying. That doesn’t happen until Mom walks in the door. I can see she’s missed my mom so much. I can’t really blame her, my mom is pretty great.

We sit on the couch and Sammy jumps up with us hopping up on my Mom’s chest and licking her as if she thinks she’s still just the tiniest of puppies. She eventually assumes a spot on the couch which Tammi informs us she has claimed for herself. I try to pet her, but she’s too excited to be explicitly interested in me.

Sammy enjoying her new spot.

It takes her some time to calm down before she comes over and properly says hello. She and I wrestle with the tattered remains of a tennis ball she’s torn to shreds. Eventually, it’s too destroyed to play with and so she goes to sit over by Tammi.

There is a part of me deep down that is selfish. That part cringes at this benign gesture with more force than that part of me has any right to exert. However, most of me knows that this is good. She loves us and misses us, but she’s happy here. This place is becoming her home, and I am truly happy for her. They all love her here. Although I cannot imagine anyone not loving my Sam, I genuinely feel that she’s in a good place.

When we leave and get into the car, Sammy watches us from the yard on her leash. She barks at us a few times before I have to turn away.

Mom asks me if I’m okay, and I tell her no. My voice is choked and I can feel the pressurized sting of tears trying desperately to escape, but I don’t let them. Not because I’m ashamed to cry, but because I know I won’t stop. What I don’t tell her, although I’m not sure I could form the words anyway, is that I will be okay. I know this is the right thing; I just wish it didn’t feel so wrong.

Sammy Part 8: The middle of the end

May 2014

“We should take Sam for a walk,” Tom says to me as we sit on the front steps of our Water Street house.

“If we’re both going for the walk, we should probably ask Mom if she wants to come with,” I say as Tom mutters his general agreement. 
Mom was just getting out of the shower, and Tom and I were supposed to be packing or cleaning or putting things into Mom’s car. We had just moved to Neenah, but there was still a surprising amount of crap left over at our Berlin house. Sam had been living here with Tom for the past week, while he finished up school. We want to play it safe.

Our neighbours have informed us of the “no dogs allowed” policy at our condominium, but we’re going to plead our case at the association meeting next Wednesday. Mom thinks that we’re screwed, that there’s no way the association will grant us an exception. However, I am forcing myself to be substantially more optimistic. If I let myself think about it, I tell myself that people are generally good. I tell myself that good people don’t like to see families split up. I tell myself that when they meet us, get to know us, they won’t want us to lose our Sammy. But mostly, I don’t tell myself anything. It’s easier to put these thoughts away in the back of my mind, to pretend that everything is okay. The alternative is not something I’m ready for.

Mom comes down from the shower, wet hair but well dressed as usual. She’s thrilled to be spending some leisure time with her kids. Sure there are things to get done, but we’ll get to them. For now, it’s just time for a walk.

It never ceases to amaze me how enamoured Sammy is with the familiar trek to nearby River Side Park. I’m certain she’s made the trip at least fifty times by now, and it’s clear that she knows the way, but that does little to curb her excited eager stride. My mom is left handed, and because of this Sam likes to walk on the left side of whoever is holding the leash. It’s strange the little things you pick up.

The walk takes us past the old one room school house that never seems to be open and past an ancient looking swing set which my mom and brother take advantage of. I sit by and watch them swing as Sam sniffs the dandelions scattered about the grass. We’re not really talking about much, or certainly nothing deep, but sometimes it’s important simply to be.

After a while, Mom and Tom decide that they’re done with the swings and we continue on towards the first Shelter House. Here Tom and I find a tennis ball submerged just beyond the river bank. Tom reaches into the murky water and retrieves the ball. I joke that the water will probably make him grow an extra limb as he tosses the water logged ball beyond Sam.

Here is Tom and Sam with the salvaged river ball.

She runs after the trail of river water that arcs through the air, and I think we never seem to have enough of these moments. The four of us together, talking and laughing. It bothers me how long it took me to realize how valuable these moments are. It bothers me how I’ve been selfish and self-important, because it has cost me moments like this. Things have been disjointed since I came home the first time or maybe even before that, but now, I think they are finally becoming sewn back together.

Sammy Part 7: The beginning of the end

August 2012

The adults are going up to my Aunt Linda’s cabin. As a 19 year old, I am vaguely miffed that I don’t qualify as an “adult.” However, when I am told that my cousins were similarly not invited, I calm down substantially. I had been living in a town house in River Falls over the summer. I chose not to go back home, but rather to stay near campus and my new jobs. I am a peer advisor at Global Connections, curtesy of my recent trip to Belize, as well as a Front End manager at Family Fresh, curtesy of my years of grocery store work at Church Street Market.

Mom and I had recently learned the hard way that Sammy couldn’t come to my place. Campus View Real Estate has a very strict “no dogs” policy and for having her simply visit one time resulted in a $150 fine. However, someone needed to watch Sammy while the adults went to the cabin, and so I was to stay at Grandma’s house with Sammy. Grandma had gone north with the rest of the adults, so it was going to be just Sammy and me.

The first thing I noticed was that Sammy didn’t have any toys. I would have to fix that. However, I have a bit of a dilemma. I haven’t really driven anywhere in almost a year. So even though I have my mother’s car, the thought of driving in the suburbs of Minneapolis is more than scary.

My first attempt results in a stuffed animal which I find at a nearby Good Will. I know this is only a temporary fix, and that she’ll destroy it well before my mom returns. However, it will do until I can find something better.

Sam and I spend our days taking long walks around my Grandma’s neighbourhood. My grandma has lived here most of my life, but I had never really explored her neighbourhood; I’d never had a reason to. Sammy seemed to enjoy the long walks. She’s never really developed a liking for other dogs, but she still loves to smell where other dogs have been. Grandma’s neighbourhood is a maze of new smells and streets that keep her thoroughly entertained for hours.

 When we’re at grandma’s house she doesn’t seem to remember the difference between a bone and a toy, but she still likes to pay. In the evenings, I watch reruns of Kyle XY while Sam lays curled up next to my legs. It’s good to have my dog back, and it’s clear that she loves me, but when mom gets back its clear that she’s now Mom’s dog. My place in Sammy’s life truly has been replaced. I’ve had about a year to come to terms with this, and truthfully I’m mostly okay with it. But it’s still hard to admit this to myself.

This is not the beginning of the end of anything for anyone, but me. I know this and so I say nothing. My family would have their beginning of the end two years later.

Sammy Part 6: The end of the middle

October 2011

I’ve been away at college for a few months now. I haven’t driven my car or any car in that long, and even riding in a car is beginning to feel strange to me. However, this weekend I’m going back to Berlin. Tom doesn’t know. Mom doesn’t know. Although I considered telling her, when she came up to River Falls the previous weekend with Sam for my 19^th birthday. I can’t keep myself from grinning as my ride drops me off at Berlin’s Kwik Trip.  I call my friend Carlson and ask her to take me out to my house, but I just want her to drop me off at the end of the street. So I’ll be a lone stranger walking up to the door. I have my sword umbrella open concealing my face as I walk down the long country street. There is someone outside stoking a campfire, but no one seems to be inside the house.

“Hello,” I say trying to make my voice sound deep and gruff. I can’t see the look on my brother’s face through the umbrella and the dark, but when I pull the umbrella away I see he’s holding the stir stick like a weapon, ready to fight like we used to when we were kids.

“Anthony?” he asks in shock as I say “yeah.”

His hardened expression drops with his stir stick, and he walks forward giving me a big hug. “What are you doing here?” he asks as I tell him how I got here.

“Is mom home?” I ask.

“No, but she should be off work soon,” he says as a devious smile creeps across his face. “We need to surprise her too,” he says as we walk to the house.

When I get inside the door, Sammy is beside herself. She always barks when we get home, it’s her way of saying “You’re back! It’s so good to see you!” However, this time, for the first time, she was crying in between her barks. I’d never seen her so excited before in my life. She missed me and I was home and she was so very happy that she couldn’t help but cry. I instantly rolled on the floor petting and playing with her as she gradually calmed down.

“Tom, I’ve got an idea,” I say with a now thrilled Sammy lying next to me. She’s gnawing on her latest chewy bone and her tail can’t stop wagging.

---

A few minutes later, I’m sitting on Tom’s bed in my old room reading. Sammy scratches at the door to get inside, but I ignore her. Mom will be home any minute. Some time passes, and Tom goes back outside to put out his campfire. When mom’s car rolls up, Sam begins barking and Tom walks back into the house.

Mom greets Tom and an excited Sam as the two of them go onto the couch to talk about their days. After the excitement of mom being home had worn off, Sam returns to scratching at the door to my former bedroom.

“What’s her deal?” I hear Tom provoke Mom.

“Sam,” Mom says as the scratching momentarily stops. “What do you want?”

She continues trying to get in. I’ve begun to start making noises to keep her interested in the room. “I bet she just misses Anthony,” Tom says.

“I guess that makes sense. We did just see him last weekend,” Mom says to him. “Sammy, Anthony’s not here.”

This is the moment I’ve been waiting for. I open the door, and walk into the living room with mock indignation on my face as I say, “Yeah I am.”

Mom is speechless for a moment, her eyes wide in shock, before she runs up to me and catches me in a tight embrace. It’s so very good to be here.

---

But the house is different. The furniture has been moved, and I no longer have a room, and there’s only a half-gallon of milk in the fridge because I was the only one who really drank milk. It’s not my house any more. I don’t live here, and Sammy is no longer my dog. She’s developed a much closer bond with my mother and brother in my absence. I feel like I’ve been replaced, as absent as the other half-gallon of milk. There is a part of me that knows I’m being over dramatic, but that part of me is meek and chooses not to speak up.

Sammy Part 5: The middle of the middle

January 2011

“Sam, Go get your bone,” I tell her as she bounds off my bed and into the living room, a blur of white and tan fur and a wagging stubby tail.

She returns a few moments later hopping up on the bed beside me where she promptly lies down and begins gnawing at her chewy bone triumphantly.

“Sammy,” I say as she pauses her chewing to look up at me. “Go get your toy.”

She quickly abandons her bone, bounding back out into the living room and returning a few moments later with her green rubber horseshoe, her only puppy-hood toy that she hasn't managed to shred with her persistent teeth. She hops back onto my bed and begins to chew on the horseshoe, tail wagging proudly.

I scratch her behind her ears and tell her she’s such a good dog. God is she clever, we’ve never had a dog this smart before.

“Come on,” I say as I hop off the bed and stride toward the kitchen followed by the jingle of Sam’s collar and the click of her nails on the tile.

“I spoil you too much,” I say reaching into the cupboard to pull out her treats. Her eyes are wide with joy and her tail is wagging.

“Sit,” I tell her, and she plops her but on the ground, but she has a hard time keeping it there because her tail is wagging too much. Also because she knows what I’m going to say next.

“Up,” I tell her and she gets up on her hind legs. I smile at this, and then give her the treat. Sam runs into the living room with it, possessed with the irrational paranoia that I would try to take the treat from her.

When I make it to the living room, she eyes me suspiciously but her tail is wagging and her treat has long been devoured. “Go get your toy,” I tell her, and then we play.

---

Later that night, I don’t put her in her room. I’ve stopped doing this, saying “Ohh it got late, and I forgot.” I don’t think my mom believes me, and she shouldn’t. Sam has been staying with me. It’s cold in the bathroom, but more than that, I like snuggling with my puppy. Sammy is my dog. Don’t get me wrong, she loves Mom and Tom, my dad and, for some reason that I don’t quite understand, she even loves Kelsie (who hates Sam for a reason I really can’t understand). However, Sammy is my dog.

So she sleeps in my room. She decided she liked sleeping under the covers, its warmer there and the walls to our house are thin to the January night. I didn’t really think dog’s liked to be under the covers, but every night she noses her way under them and curls up by my legs in that way that dogs do where they’re leaning against you but not on top of you. I really get why they say that dogs are man’s best friend.

This photo was actually taken much more recently, but it fits with the over all theme of this post really well.

Sammy Part 4: The beginning of the middle

June 2010

Maybe it was early July, I don’t really remember. I had been away for the week at an event called World Affairs Seminar. This makes it sound like I was globally conscious before I began going abroad. High school me would have thought so, but I can assure you, I wasn’t. That change came later. The only lasting thing that happened during my time at W.A.S. was that Sam broke her right front leg. She had gotten too close behind Tom, and he had stepped backwards. It really was just an accident, and Tom felt terrible.

---

It’s a few days later when I finally get home. Sam’s leg is covered in a pink cast and she is wearing the cone of shame. I think I remember being angry at Tom, but I know it was an accident, and I know that it was strange to see Sam in a cast. I had never broken a bone, and although Tom had managed to break both of his collar bones on separate occasions, we had never really been around anyone with a cast. So it’s strange to see her walk around with that pink club.

A broken leg has done little to hinder her jumping ability. My bed is over three feet off the ground, and Sam is able to jump onto my bed – cast and all. The cone of shame is luckily just a temporary thing. She hates it, and so we only force her to wear it if she won’t leave her cast alone.

The hardest this is that we had just gotten her used to the idea of going potty outside, and now we can’t very well take her for a walk. She’s going to be back on the potty pads for the next few months. This poor dog is probably really confused about what we expect out of her.

The vet says that she should be able to get her cast off by the end of the summer. She’s still pretty young so she should have no problem healing, although she might end up walking with a limp for a while.

Sammy Part 3: The end of the beginning

May 2010

For some reason I couldn't get her to take a picture this day without her licking her nose.

My family moves a lot. We had been living in this house on Wisconsin Street for about two years. It might be hard to believe, but that’s kind of a long run for us. Maybe we found better rent somewhere else or maybe we didn’t like this land lord anymore or maybe we just felt it was time to move. It really doesn’t matter too much to me by this point. This time we were moving back out to the country. We would be right next to the Fox River within spitting distance of a golf course. Not quite like the Montello house, but it’s a nice approximation.

Sammy is almost fully grown now. Her rounded puppy features have all but vanished into a dog that could no longer fit in the palm of my hands or wear a tiny pink puppy sweater. Although we’ve kept the sweater anyway – due to its excellent tug of war properties. She can jump outrageously high for such a short dog, and she is perfectly happy to stand on her hind legs. It makes me wonder if she could be taught some elaborate tricks. I know we won’t put in the time to teach her anything too fancy, but I still like the possibility.

I think Sam likes this new place, maybe not at first. She was only just beginning to enjoy the outdoors and moving to a strange place probably disoriented her. However, she seems to be enjoying the birds that hide in the bushes by our front door and the squirrels which daringly wander into our yard. Our new house has huge bay windows which look out onto the river. This gives Sam the opportunity to be the guard dog I think she’s always wanted to be. Her barks are still high pitch, but it’s weird to think how they’re much deeper than her little puppy yips. They grow up so fast… you know?

We live next to a boat landing actually, and so a few times now, people have driven up to put their boat in the water. Sammy has made sure to let them know that she did not give them permission to trespass on her fair territory. We think she might be developing a bit of a princess complex. It’s our fault, we can’t help but to spoil her a little bit.

Sammy Part 2: The middle of the beginning

February 2010

Sammy doesn’t like the outside, and she likes her little pink doggy sweater even less. She is so small and it is so cold out that without the sweater we barely make it out the door before she begins to cry and huddle up next to our feet. This has been making the task of house training her, somewhat difficult. After about a week, my mother decided the only solution would be through potty pads. It makes me wonder why they don’t have litter boxes for dogs, but I suppose this is effectively the same thing.

There is one thing Sammy likes about her pink doggy sweater, and that’s that it is the ideal toy for tug of war, her absolute favourite game. She doesn’t really understand the idea behind fetch. She loves running after toys, but has absolutely no intention of bringing them back to us. She’s already destroyed several stuffed animals with her razor sharp puppy teeth, and most of her plastic toys aren’t holding up much better.

I read once that a puppy’s breath always stinks, even if you give them a breath mint. However, what they don’t tell you is that there is nothing sweeter than puppy kisses. Our little Sammy is the sweetest puppy I’ve ever known. I know part of this must be the thing that makes parents think that their kids are the best children ever, but I also know that Sammy is just a sweet dog. Sure she loves to romp and play as puppies do, but she also loves to curl up on our laps or on our shoulders and to give us little sleepy puppy kisses before she passes out from a hard day’s play.

She’s still too little to climb the stairs, but we know it’s only a matter of time before she’s all around the house. We’ll have to get a doggy gate on top of the weekly need for new chew toys. 

Sammy Part 1: The beginning of the beginning

January 2010

I pull my car into my usual spot, the one closest to the library in the lot behind our house. The cold January night air bites at my legs through the thin fabric of my Church Street Market pants, but my thick brown leather jacket and obnoxiously long curly brown hair keep the rest of me warm as I walk the few feet to our door.

Jacket off and work shirt unbuttoned, I walk into the living room surprised to see that both my mom and brother are sitting on the couch, but more surprised to see what is sleeping on my mother’s chest.

“Mom?” I ask, my eyes focusing in on the tiny sleeping puppy, “Who’s puppy is that?”

“She’s ours,” Tom says gleefully.

“We went to get her earlier today,” Mom supplies as I stand there in speechless disbelief. She hadn’t said anything about getting a dog. No one had. How could we get a dog? In our tiny place in the middle of winter. We hadn’t even talked about getting a dog sine Zazzy; I wasn’t even sure I wanted a dog.

“Do you want to hold her?” Mom asks.

“Yeah,” I say, not sure of how I should feel as I sit down beside her on the couch. I hold my hands out, and Mom puts a now yawning puppy in my palms. She is so little that she fits perfectly in my cupped hands. Yeah, I want a dog. Who was I kidding?

---

I don’t really remember how we decided on the name Sammy, but I think it was my mother’s idea after she had shot down a few more eccentric name choices. It never really occurred to me that we had gotten Sam to help Tom cope with his new disease. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t involved at all in the decision to get a Dog. Being the self-involved high school student that I surely was, I never took the time to consider why Mom might have decided to get a dog now.

However, what I soon found out is that we all needed her. It had been hard since Dad left, but more than that, sometimes life is just hard. The three of us were all hurting, and Sammy was the medicine we didn’t know we needed. It’s not really an effect that can be measured with small words or a number. All I know is that after Sam came into our lives, we were all noticeably happier, so much so that I can recall all of us mentioning it on more than one occasion.