Losing a Friend and Family Member

Delivered as a Toastmasters speech

I happen to like dogs in spite of themselves, in spite of what they are. Dogs generally smell bad, are impertinent, and drool. They do this in your house, when company is over, at all times of the day and night. They cause us to spend money for no better reason than to care for the same dog that just minutes before made a mess in the corner and stole a sandwich from the table. It is all these faults that makes them so much like family.

Their greatest flaw is that they don't live as long as we do, and so we tend to lose them just when we are finally getting used to them. Sometimes losing a dog is just losing a dog, but sometimes it means a little bit more than that. Some times, when they go, they take a little bit of us with them.

One way to recover from losing a dog is to get another. That was the solution taken by my mother when her dog passed on. She surprised my father by bringing home an energetic bichon frise. And by energetic I mean Nascar energetic. Jet fighter energetic. Energizer bunny on cocaine energetic. This annoying little dog would run and bark all over the house for hours at a stretch. I believe my father would have strangled the miserable cur if only he could have caught it.

We named the miserable cur Mr. Peabody because he reminded us, in the brief moments he stood still, of the time traveling dog from the Rocky and Bullwinkle show. We even bought him a name tag for his collar in the shape of a bow tie, just like Mr. Peabody wore. It's those kind of silly moments that make space for even the most hated beast in your heart. By annoying everyone in the family equally, we were all united in our dislike, and in that way brought together. So Peabody had a role in the family, a job to do.

My mother liked Peabody no matter what, but my Father needed a bit more convincing. To him, a dog was something that should be outside. Away from the house. But this was a lap dog, something of a novelty for my father. And it turned out that Peabody liked ice cream, sausage, and salami. Not all together, but throughout the day. It was Peabody's intense enjoyment of eating food from McDonalds that endeared him to my father. They became inseperable as twice a day my father took Peabody out for a meal.

I mentioned that this dog ran like a libertarian hyped up on goofballs; so it was no surprise that one day he damaged the ligaments in his right knee. I was stunned, however, to learn that my father had agreed to have the surgery necessary to repair the knee. It was about $1,000 dollars. Mind you, I wasn't jealous of the money being lavished; merely surprised. My father had money in his retirement, but you wouldn't know it by how he spent.

So the dog, Mr. Peabody, recovered, and, surprise surprise, we actually think he gained a step in his running. We were going to enter him into the canine olympics, when he developed diabetes. The years of eating almost exclusively at McDonalds was catching up.

Again, my father amazed me when he agreed to give Mr. Peabody an insulin shot twice a day. It was as if his undersized heart had grown to ten times that day (plus two). My father showed an affection he had never, ever demonstrated before. My mother was proud of him, but slightly jealous. Still, I think it made their lives better.

Alas, the diabetes that gave my father an opportunity to demonstrate his compassion for another living creature ultimately took that living creature from us. Mr. Peabody grew gravely ill at the most inopportune time, while my father was confined to the hospital for an operation. Peabody hung on long enough for my father to bid him farewell.

I knew it was very difficult for my father to say goodbye because he asked me to take Peabody to the vet to be put to sleep. My father passed on about six months after that, and then my mother began to lose her struggle against Alzheimers.

It is the memory of Mr. Peabody that unites me and my brothers. That silly little bichon frise symbolizes our parents final years: all the struggles, the pain, and the brief interludes of joy. To care for an animal that has no other purpose than to beg for attention is arguably the silliest thing that we do. It also the very act that symbolizes what it is to be human: to love and to care when there is really no good reason to do either.

We no longer need dogs the way our ancestors needed them, for survival. In fact, given the conveniences of this modern world, we hardly need each other. But living in a community, and in a family, and inviting dogs to join us, is all part of being human.