Summitt the Wonder(ful) Dog

I am sitting on the couch with my sleeping dog beside me. She is a beagle mix who is moody at times although the aging process has tempered her temper a bit. That and thyroxine.

She was a surprise “gift” from my mother. I grew up with dogs and they were always the best, best friends for an only child.

Summit was delivered to me on a Fall break 11 years ago. I had my own house and had room for a dog. She was 6 lbs. and could fit into the front pocket of my rain jacket. She slept a lot then. Like she does now. Of course she was to be an outdoor dog. But then it snowed. About 6 inches and she couldn’t get through the snow. And then it was cold. And then, well….she was comfortable on the bed. Under the covers. Behind my knees. Where she still sleeps most nights.

She scared me to death before Christmas when she contracted some awful puppy virus and I begged her not to die on me as we wildly drove to see Dr. Karl, a friend from church who was our vet. He is a gentle man with a quiet voice who kept her overnight and called me throughout the evening with updates. Calmly telling me she would be fine and it wasn’t Parvo and no she didn’t eat that earring I lost and couldn’t find. He did the x rays already.

She chewed on 8 year old Joe’s ears when that was ALL he had on his head. Just a noggin and short cropped hair and ears good enough o eat.

She gave her seal of approval to Heidi and was there to call me back to consciousness after that first kiss in the living room. You have had them...the ones that make the world stop and then turn over so you see it differently from that moment on.

She helped write my first thesis. And stayed up …truly, to see that I proof read and edited and finally printed out the last page of works cited. She got a graduation card from Grandma for her scholarship.

She moved across town and terrorized Casey (Heidi’s dog) and worried Max next door to death. She nursed Heidi through surgery in Chattanooga. And she stayed beside my mother as she took her last breath. Gently curling next to her until we could get there on that long long drive up the interstate. We could tell where she laid doing a job that I could never do myself. The last one of us to usher mother through the thin curtain. She dried my tears with her kisses and gently placed herself at my side as I sat on a deck that summer, silently screaming into the darkness of the nights that were endless.

As I sit on this couch thinking of the last time I heard my mother’s voice, Summitt looks at me with sightless brown eyes. Eyes that sometimes reflect something else I can’t quite make out. I know without a doubt that she cannot see. She blinks but that is because her eye lids still react to air flow. Suddenly, I realize maybe she knows how I feel. That it still hurts after almost 6 years this June. That sometimes I forget what it is to hear my mother tell me she loves me. She reminds me that there is a still voice that calls me home. A voice that lets me know deep inside that Mom is alright and that she loves me still.

Summitt gently nuzzles me and sits on my lap while I cry even now. And then she puts her head back down and sleeps.