jersey boy

My dog of 10 years just died in my arms. Life is such a mysterious thing. One minute it fills a body, moving the chest up and down, and the next it is gone. And there is no in between. And there is no returning.

To say that I am sad does not capture the true depth of my emotion. Jersey was more than “just a dog” to our family. None of our children know life without Jersey. He came before them and he is one of us. When family pictures are drawn for school, Jersey is included. When prayers are said and family members are listed, Jersey in included. Just the other day I caught Joe accidentally calling our son “Jersey” before realizing he had picked the wrong name.

But I think what really made Jersey special was what he endured with our family over the last 6 years. My sister-in-law confessed to me the other night that she and her sister both thought we were insane to keep Jersey around when we brought Ira home from the hospital. After all, we were in a small New York City apartment with no outside space. We couldn’t just shew him out the back door when things got cramped. But here we were bringing Ira home with a trach, on a ventilator with an oxygen tank and everything that went along with that.

The beauty of it all was the bond he shared with Ira. Ira was essentially home bound for 3 years. He didn’t have many play dates because it was too risky to have people in our home bringing in their weird germs. So, Jersey was the ultimate play date. He would let Ira climb on him, bury his head into him, roll on him, sit on him(this is true for all my children). Out of all of Ira’s therapists, Jersey was the best.

Jersey ate dinner at 5pm sharp. One of our NYC nurses reminded me today how he learned to understand the phrase “Oprah’s over” to mean it was time to eat. (Oprah was on TV everyday from 4-5pm). Sometimes we would say the phrase just to watch his ears perk up and tail begin to wag. He was one smart, funny, dog. And he loved to eat.

Because we lived in apartments most of Jersey’s life, he had to be walked as a means of survival. He accompanied us on thousands of walks throughout his life. When we moved to the suburbs, we got lazy. It wasn’t until we moved in to our new house that I recommitted to taking him on an evening walk. I began to look forward to that time of the day when it was just the two of us circling the block.

A couple weeks ago I was telling Jersey how I couldn’t wait for some cooler weather. I imagined our walk a couple months from now when the leaves would be orange and red and I might even need to grab a jacket on the way out the door.

Jersey, I guess I’ll have to wait a little longer for that walk. Enjoy heaven, Old Buddy, where you can fetch and swim forever. And save a walk for me.

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