by Amy
My beloved Angel, how do I say good-bye? My last tribute to you I think should be a story about you and how you came to be with us. As I know there are so many others like you out there and your wish would be that they too would find the happiness you did. It was 15 1/2 years ago that your Daddy and I, still engage and planning our wedding, took a trip to the pound - just to look of course. There you were. In the cages with the cats because you were too small and weak to be with the dogs. Barely 7 pounds with mange and you had to be the least likely animal in the place to find a home. You had no outward beauty because of the mange and bones showing. Two years old and not a puppy anymore. Something in you pulled at me. It was 4:45 in the afternoon on a Friday and they told me you had no chance. You would be put down at closing (5:00). No one wanted a little mal-nurished dog with mange. No one but your Daddy and me, that is. The adoption fee was $10 - quite a bit for two college
students! We had no cash so I left your Daddy there as a hostage and protector while I ran back to town to cash a $10 check. I'm lucky it wasn't HOT! I came back and we took you home. Home, what a funny way to put it. To the dorm where you definately weren't allowed. We dipped you and got rid of the mange and you lived in my door room (closet when I was in class) until we could make the 5 hour trip back home for a weekend. We left you with Daddy's grandmother and went back to finish the semester. We didn't know our semester would end early when your Daddy's father would die. But when we left school and come home we found this beautiful little black dog (WITH HAIR) that now weighted 13 pounds. Seems Granny had fed you only redbeans and rice for a month! Over the next 15 years you became our little love. Two people
naturally drawn to "big" dogs loved your little self, like you were our first child. You have brought us through Grandpa's funeral, attended our wedding reception - even went on the honeymoon with us! Over the years you attended my grandmothers funeral, saved my married by being my ear to unload on. You have introduce many other animals into our home and stood by me as we burried them as they became old and died. And yet you moved on. You were there to celebrate our college graduation, sat by me while I was sick when pregnant,
waited patiently at the door to introduce those new babies to our home. You stood guard over them as they slept and woke me when they cried. You moved from the dorm, to our first home. You inspected ever board in the new house as we built it and moved in and claimed you spot right away. You have ruled the "big dogs" with an iron paw and told them exactly who was "top dog". You have laid at my feet and looked up with warm loving eyes as I changed jobs and
feared what I was getting into. There is not an aspect of my life that you didn't help me through. And then today it was my turn to help you. You couldn't go on and you looked at me and I could tell you were tired. At 17 1/2 your body, if not your heart couldn't fight any longer. You glaced out at the others and I knew you were saying that you had trained them well to take over my emotional well being and it was time for you to go to heaven and be with the first "pack" -
your "pack". Daddy gathered you in his arms and we kissed you and then we gave you the last gift we could. You in living spent 15 years in our lives and we brought you home and burried you in our yard. Now the years no longer matter.
You will be with us in our hearts forever. My dear, darling Angel - fly high with the others and visit me often. I love you so deeply. May God know what a wonderful angel he has taken home. God bless you for all the love and blessings you brought into our lives. Love, Mommy