Linky is our Pup of the Week

It was only a few days before Christmas when I made my decision.  There would be no more pups crossing Rainbow Bridge until the New Year.  I was building a wall.  And the Chihuahuas were going to pay for it.  

We began building the wall the next morning.  In two days we had it almost built.  Tommy was holding the nails in his mouth.  I would take a nail and hammer another board in place.  Tommy took his break but I kept working.  I looked at the dog at the bottom of the ladder.  “Can you hand me some more nails Linky?”

Linky?  What was he doing here?  If I was being totally truthful with my coworkers Linky was the reason we were building the wall.  He had become very sick recently.  He was not eating, he was throwing up any water he swallowed, his stomach was enlarged and hard to the touch.  When he went to the vet they drained lots of fluid from around his heart (so much fluid that it was crushing his organs.)  He was diagnosed with heart failure and put on medication.  The Angels began to carry tons of prayers for him up to the mountain.  

But some things are meant to be no matter how many prayers are carried.  Linky did not respond to the medication.  In fact he grew worse.  He went back to the doctor who said that Linky had a tumor on his heart.  He needed a very risky operation.  That is when we got more prayers, and I got the idea to build a wall.

Linky survived the operation but he was a very sick little boy.  I hoped the wall would keep him with his Mom until at least the New Year but, as I looked at the little white fluff ball next to me I knew I had failed.

“How did you get here?” I asked Linky.

“I saw the wall when I was on the escalator leading from the Bridge.  I thought I would be stuck there then a hand lifted me up and put me over the wall.  I saw you and Tommy working on this wall so I came to help”

I climbed down and sat next to him.  “I had hoped this wall would keep you, and all other pups, away from the Immortal side until Christmas.”

He put his new angel paw on my shoulder:  “It was a noble effort Foley but nothing can stop the march to the immortal side.  We are all born a story and every story has an end and my end came this week.  All stories must end Foley, if a story never ended then no one would write new stories.”

I was impressed.  Linky was very smart.  I don’t know why Lily did all the barking for their pack.  Linky tapped the wall.  “I do wish it had worked.  Mommy is going to miss my kisses, my playful spirit, my patience.  Me just being me.  And I am going to miss everything about my Mom and my sisters.  I don’t know what I am going to do with myself.”

I told him first he needed to get sworn in, and then get his wings, and then we would go to Tommy’s for a big bowl of popcorn or maybe to Otis’ for some ice cream.  And we would watch over his family on one of the many television sets and I would teach him how to dream visit and to assume the bodies of birds, bees and other flying creatures so he could visit his Mom even when she didn’t know he was there.

And while he was doing all of that I would be waiting here, in the place where all stories begin chronicling how all stories end.