Pup of the Week: Easy

This year, for the first time, I signed my family up for the Blogville Christmas Card list  We have several great friends who we have become very close with over the past few years.  You send cards to your friends at Christmas, don’t you?

Mommy got the list via e-mail.  On our next dream date,  I found her sitting on a rock by the river with the paper in her hand.   There were close to two dozen dogs listed that I had never barked at.  Mommy lectured me:  Now she was going to have to buy cards for dogs I didn’t know.  I tried to blame Pocket but Mom knew better.  I promised Mom I would try to make friends with everyone on the list before Christmas.  She gave me one of her “If I could get mad at you I would,” looks.

I meant to get to know each dog the next morning, but the Christmas Angels made it snow again, and it was so snuggly in my bed, that I procrastinated.

That afternoon I got a text.  I was needed to swear in a new member of Rainbow Bridge.  I put on my robe and slipped the list into the breast pocket.

I saw the new angel.  He was a beautiful, seven-year-old, male Weimaraner.   I performed my duties then asked him his name.  He told me his parents called him Easy.  I felt a chill run through me.  With trembling paw I pulled the list from my pocket.  My eyes ran down the names and rested on Easy.  I turned and showed the list to him.  “Is this you?” I asked.

Easy saw it and smiled.  “Yes, that’s me.  You must be Foley Monster.”  He grabbed my paw and shook it.  “I wish I could say it was a pleasure to meet you but the circumstances of my arrival have left me quite bereft, and I am mourning the loss of my parents.”  I put a paw of understanding on his shoulder.

I felt so bad.  Here was a perfectly pleasant, handsome, friendly, creative dog, and neither I nor my sisters, got to know him in the mortal world.  We would have so loved to have shared in his adventures and talked to him each day.  Meeting Easy was like finding out about “Hamilton” after it had closed.

His was a particularly tragic passing.  He suffered from bloat, and it caused perforations in his stomach.  At first, the doctors told his parents that he would be okay and his family let loose a happy shout and a sigh of relief.  But during the night his conditioned worsened, and he slipped away to the Bridge.   When an older dog passes there is sadness but also there is a relief to see them young again, no longer troubled by the numerous ailments that ended their lives.  When it is a young dog in his prime like Easy, who came to the Bridge senselessly, there is nothing but sadness.   I know so many angels who arrived here because of bloat and other stomach issues.  It never gets easier.

I introduced Easy to my most trusted Angel friends.  They put him on an accelerated course, so he learned how to fly, to enter his parents’ dreams, and to be near them on the mortal side.  The hardest lessons for new Angels to learn is their parents will never mentally understand that their beloved friend is back by their side but somewhere inside their souls they will know.

And I am sending that list to Pocket.  She has lots of friends to make because there is never enough time.