Wandering on

Feb. 29, 2007

Dear Alvie,

We buried you Saturday morning under the new red, purple, yellow and green birdhouse beyond the kitchen window. You loved listening to birds, often lying in the sun for hours in the room where DC keeps her parakeets and finches and love birds.

We always meant to take you back to Charleston, to the place where people fall from the sky. DC hoped you'd like remembering where you came from.

The skydiver who found you in a field more than five years ago said you looked as if you had never had a bath. She cleaned you up and was seeing to your medical problems when you escaped from her back yard. Maybe you somehow knew she couldn't keep you.

At our door appeared a scruffy little beagle with a mysterious ragged scar running the length of his side. You didn't like to be held. We figured maybe you just weren't used to it.

The first veterinarian doubted you could be saved. The worms in your heart had done permanent damage, and the procedure that gets rid of the worms could kill you. But you were tough just to have survived in the world as long as you had. Seven years, the next veterinarian estimated.

The treatment worked, though we knew your congested heart or another vital organ still would wear out sooner than later.

We wondered how our other dogs would take to you. Lucy did, Hank just barely.

You must have been born to wander, Alvie. Right away you made a bed of a suitcase that happened to be open on the floor. You ran away four times I know of, each one a traumatic event for DC and me. I don't think they were really escapes. You were just following your nose like a good beagle.

We treasure the photograph of you with one of your greatest hunting trophies -- a flattened squirrel -- in your mouth.

Lightning and thunder were all you were afraid of. If you started shivering we knew a storm was coming.

Life must have been trickier for you earlier on. We wished you could tell us how you got the scar. A fight with a wild animal, a collision with a pickup truck? Did a skydiver fall on you?

We tried to show you that love exists in the world, too. Eventually you responded, even grew to demand attention.

You were a magnet for people and other dogs, maybe because you had the soulfulness of someone who's weathered many storms and knows everything will be OK no matter what.

When I took you to Blanchard School, students who have a hard time relating to other people had an easy time being with you. At DC's office you made children forget about being afraid of the dentist. On walks with DC, when you bayed at the drug dealers who used to hang out on the corner they bayed back at you.

We miss you baying at us when we come home. To me that was the loud sound of "I am."

These last few weeks when you were terribly sick, you didn't talk much. DC carried you when she walked Hank and Lucy. When you stopped eating and drinking we figured you were ready to go, but letting you go was hard. DC said it seemed as if she'd always lived life in threes: one for you, one for Hank and one for Lucy.

At the end she fed you chicken broth with a syringe, and some days you seemed peppier than others. That last night, though, when you struggled just to breathe, we knew we had to let you wander on without us.

Twice lightning flashed and thunder shook the ground just before we laid you down. We were glad you missed that.

We know you are made of Godstuff like everything is and that you're only somewhere else. Thank you for hunting us down. We will always love you.

Sam

Sam Blackwell is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.