Clancy

    It's the little things that add the ornaments to our tree of life. As Christmas approaches, we once again give thanks for life – for the joy of experience, the love of friends and family, and yes, we give thanks even for the tragedy of loss. It is from loss that we learn to cherish and is from cherishing that we learn to love.

    Cherish – love – oneness. It all fits together in the grand scheme of the Great Teacher . We experienced something like that this Christmas season with our Boston Terrier, Clancy. Clancy was our dearly beloved eight year old member of the family. Clancy wouldn't have been allowed in a dog show if he had bought a ticket. If he had been human we would say he was born on the other side of the tracks: born in a puppy mill and adopted by us at a time when we foolishly paid no heed to the necessary questions to ask in order to get a well-bred puppy.

     Clancy was 35 pounds when he should have been 20. He was the bull in the proverbial china shop; a clumsy, oafish, utterly loving bit of nature! His ears never stood up and he was, physically, more than a bit flawed. However, in the love department, no one outshone Clancy. He could love you up with gusto and you always knew when he needed love – and he needed a lot of it. Clancy never met a bit of food he didn't like, and he never saw a human tush that didn't just ask for a wee nip He just didn't like to be ignored, I like to think. Others think that he badly needed to be taken to a dog trainer!

   A year and a half ago, Clancy developed a small wart-like thing on his side. We consulted our vet, and she removed it, telling us it was a 2 plus cancer. It could spread, but it might not. And so we hoped; humans always hope, at least until unreasonable fear or cynicism takes over. Well, our hope was in vain. 3 weeks ago Clancy started coughing – this croupy kind of cough and he developed a rash on his over-grown tummy. Cough, rash and a baseball sized tumor in side that tummy. The cough worsened and Clancy began to have seizures, obviously with a lot of pain. Yes, he had 5 seizures and we knew that our little bull was fatally damaged.

    There is a large hole in our family. Nobody clumps onto the bed in the middle of the night, tromping on all bodies therein. No one greets every guest with undue enthusiasm, and it seems so quiet. We have filled our dog-need-space with Emma, a 9 week old Boston – picture attached. She can't take Clancy's place, but she is fast creating a place of her own.

    Ah me! We will have lots of pets waiting for us if and when we get to the rainbow bridge, and each in his turn has added his joy and his pain to our lives. I wouldn't have gone this way without each and every one of them, for it is the little things, the little creatures that add so much to our love quotient and teach us what it is to feel the emotions of life. We cherished Clancy and I like to think that he loved us. Goodbye old friend.