Worth the Scars

I can’t even think of throwing it away.

It’s a 19-year-old leather strip with a scratched and rusty buckle. The tags still make the same jingling sound, the only tangible reminder of my friend of 16 years.

Her full name was Shackaroo My Friend, and she lived up to it. After one of my first days in my first job out of college I came home to a bedraggled shepherd-mix puppy--a gift from my man on our first wedding anniversary.

The job lasted two weeks. Every night, after long hours I came home to a frantic puppy in a huge mess. I was feeling disconnected from my home, my man and the wriggling creature that needed care and training. I quit the job, loved the dog and the man.

It was time well-spent. Life was ideal during those months--we were living on the beach, training her, taking her everywhere with us. We became a little family--happy and close. She got it in her head that it would always be that way, and so did I.

We moved and a war broke out. My husband, an Air Force pilot, was suddenly gone. I was 3000 miles from home, alone, except for my Shackaroo. It was the first of many times, all bearable because of this friend. She was an encouraging presence in the midst of growing up, being alone, and finding my place in adulthood and marriage. I might not know how to live alone in a new city for months, but I had someone to talk to, walk and care for. She kept me out and walking in the world and got me home safe, growling and looking scary when I needed her to.

Years passed and my husband and I were finding our way, spending less time as a close-knit family. Mid-life hit hard, the world quit working as it was supposed to and we questioned the life we’d built. A painful time, Shackaroo comforted me. I would crawl under the table to lay with her, crying and praying when it seemed my unbreakable life was cracking.

Overnight, it seemed, Shackaroo was aging. We made amends for her the best we could, but she could not keep up. She needed life to stay as it once was--the three of us young, fresh-faced, togetherness our only need. Nothing did change for our true-blue Shackaroo--no mid-life crisis, no regrets or grudges--happy to be in the center of us. She got that from me.

Life doesn’t stop for a graying dog or a wounded perspective. In the end it was difficult to find her in those milky eyes, in her painful shuffle, in her inability to rest. One night, she being somewhat blind, snapped at a puppy and bit me instead.

We knew that was the end. She had outlived her time, but not her love and loyalty, and certainly not mine. I had to let her go though--it was the worst day. With a bruised, swollen stitched-up wound on my face, I had to let her go. Living was too much, yet we’d asked it of her. She would never deny us, so we had to make her stop trying.

I don’t know how you say goodbye to such a friend. It’s so wrong that dog-friends don’t live as long as we do. Someone told me it’s by design, a practice run for dealing with the loss of our human companions. That seems a lame reason for such a painful lesson--it all hurts.

As a couple, we made it through the mourning and the mid-life issues, closer for having been through them. The collar stays around to show life is worth the pain, even with the scars it leaves. For a time, I got to know closeness, companionship and pure loyalty in a four-legged friend whose simple spirit still touches me.

I miss that dog.