I was productive too. Finished a huge chunk of my insurance licensing course.
I ended up with Strep somehow. So from Tuesday night to Friday night was a little rough. Thank God for antibiotics. I think. Still debating that.
I had a really great trip. We went out one night for Halloween, handed candy out to excited kids dressed as Angry Birds or zombies on Halloween night, saw Perks of Being a Wallflower (finally!) and cooked and caught up on Revenge episodes with Paul. Side note: The beginning of Perks of Being a Wallflower has the tunnel that Paul and I would drive through when he picked me up from the airport in Pittsburgh. It's through a mountain pretty much and comes out onto a beautiful bridge that shows you a good expanse of the city. I remembered it immediately. So cool. The movie was fantastic, for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.
But the real reason I'm writing, which is really difficult to do today, is because Jasper is gone. My 11-year-old, crazy, stinky, always smiling Lab had cancer throughout his entire body. They found it last Monday. Jasper had been throwing up all over the garage last Sunday at Jack's birthday and they took him to the vet only to find problems. He had a piece of steak bone stuck in his intestine and also had cancer everywhere. Even if the bone was removed, the vet said he had two weeks tops because his appetite was pretty much gone. We had noticed he wouldn't eat his dog food unless someone stood over him. And I noticed how he was puking a lot. And he even pee'd on my mom's oriental rug when I let him in the house. We are talking about the dog with steel kidneys here. He had the capability of holding his urine stream all day if we had to go away for something. He was a champ.
So Mom called me Monday afternoon and I almost dropped the phone from my hand. I had just finished running and felt as though my heart had stopped beating entirely. She said that Hurricane Sandy knocked power out at the vet's and they ended up not taking him until Halloween morning. She said he watched Dad with big sad eyes, almost pleading with him to fix him like he so often did. Paul commented that it was probably best I wasn't home to see it all. The poor dog kept drooling and barfing everywhere. He was weak. Monday night we figured out Skype on Jack's iPad so I got to see him one last time. He was just quiet.
Halloween day passed and I tried not to think too much about what coming home to the empty garage with the empty food and water bowls would be like. No Jasper to run up and sniff my jeans for those exciting Rochester and gas station highway stop smells.
We used to laugh about how he would pop his head out from under the garage door as it opened and he would raise his head as the door went up so it looked like his head was raising the door. Silly. Or if all the garage doors were open except one and he was outside, he would wait for the one you were opening at that moment and then enter the garage that way. He was just silly. It's instances like those that made us laugh after a long day at work or school.
And I can't even begin with his personality quirks. He was a wild puppy. Tearing clothes and the yard up in one fell swoop. We left him home in a rush one day to get to school. He was only outside maybe a half hour but we came back to find my mother's precious dogwood tree had lost a rather large limb and it was scattered around the lawn in splinters. Jasper was rather proud of that one and even helped us clean the sticks up. He was proud until Dad got home and started yelling. Then he was nowhere to be found.
We had a similar instance where my mom was watering a plant and Jasper decided he wanted water. So he stuck his nose in and mom batted him away. Rachael Vaughan and I had just gotten home from the barn and watched as the little tyrant spun around and bit the beautifully formed flower head off her plant. Just snapped it off, spit it out, and nonchalantly walked away.
Jasper is a type of stone. Ironic considering Jasper's favorite food wasn't dog food, or even people food. It was rocks. We caught him laying at the end of the driveway chewing. Dad would jack his mouth open and two or three rocks would tumble out as he fought for his head. Not only did he eat them, he passed them. And his love for them only grew. He loved to swim, but was terrified of jumping off the dock unless one of us ran and jumped with him. It took him until he was 9 years old before he would try it. But he had NO FEAR whatsoever of sticking his head underwater and coming up with rocks bigger than his own head. And he would deposit them either on the lawn or the big Jetski dock rock. He had a collection that we would routinely throw back in. Much like restocking a fishing pond. And by the time he turned 11, his teeth were filed down to nubs. Jasper was a show on his own. Moltys and their company would come over, most notably Mr. Ferrarri who was Jasper's biggest fan, and they would watch this nutty dog hunt around for a prize of the sandy variety.
There's other little stories that just show how he grew into our lives and became family. There was the day that Paul took him on the jetski. He wasn't a fan. There was also the day that Paul and Jasper took the surf bike for a ride until Jasper got bored and simply walked off the back leaving Paul to flip over.
And everyone had a voice to narrate his thoughts. It was always your basic, dopey, happy voice that laughed every other sentence. But we all loved giving words to his doggie persona.
I took Jasper for his last car ride with me about a week ago. He passed out in the back seat until I opened the window and he stuck his head out. Ears flapping, nose sniffing, we drove along and he wagged his tail. The Buick and my Legacy were his cars. He didn't want you to ask him to come, he demanded and expected the door to just be opened for him automatically.
But I think the best part of Jasper, and the hardest part of saying goodbye...is the fact he was always there, in the garage or in the kitchen hallway if I needed a neck to hug, or some fur to cry into (no matter how stinky it may have been that day). If I had a bad, I could sit on the steps with him and he'd push his nose around until I pet him for hours. Or we'd go outside and he'd get a superb grooming. The dog shed like no other. He was like another brother for me though. Although he was like an older brother for the simple fact he picked me up when I was down.
You were the best of the best, buddy. I hope doggie heaven has lots of Otises for you to go swimming in and find rocks. You'll never be forgotten
An overload of Jasper pictures:
Miss you pup.
:(
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