My task was simple today. I needed to line up a truck to take Teddy, my grandmother's mutt to the vet to be put to sleep. I had put it off, and put it off, and put it off for quite some time for no other real reason than I just didn't feel up to the task. Today, realizing that it was Friday and that the dog had been in pain since Wednesday, I called my grandmother to come get me.

Ring around the Rosy
Pocket full of posies
ashes to ashes
we all fall down

Gravedigger
when you dig my grave
could you make it shallow
so that I can feel the rain
oh Gravedigger

- Dave Matthews, "Gravedigger"

Teddy was picked up in a creek bed by my grandfather when he was just a puppy. The Chow-looking dog was on a small sand island in the middle of the swift current. He still had his baby fur, which meant he was probably abandoned. He picked him up, and wrapped the wet little ball of fur in a towel in his truck, and drove home. My grandmother said that the first words to her when he pulled up were "Margie, you're going to hurt me for this one," to which she replied "Get that dog outside before he makes a mess all over my clean house!" He just laughed.

Teddy was your typical yard dog. You don't get too attached to a dog that lives outdoors, because you have to make the conscious effort to be around it. A house-trained dog will come up to you at odd hours of the night, and keep you awake until the early morning hours barking at seemingly nothing. All the same, Teddy didn't seem to notice this much, playing around with the water hose when you sprayed it at him. He shared a kennel with what we believed to be a half-wolf, half-German Sheppard named Savage. I hadn't realized this until I was on my way back to my grandmother's house, but Savage had faced a similar ailment, and consequence, several years ago.

The ailment is a bit mysterious. Both dogs lost use of their back legs, as if something had bit them or a disease had come over them. I figure it was likely a snake that had made its way up from her pond. At any rate, they were miserable, barely ate, and couldn't get up to even recognize when someone came near them. Euthanasia was the only humane option. When Savage was stricken, my grandmother said she'd been the only one to take him to the vet, and she cried the entire way home. This, she said, was the reason she wanted someone else to help her.

I got out of the car in Greenfield, and immediately made my way to the kennel. My grandmother went in to use the bathroom and get the car ready for our trip to the vet in Trenton. As I walked up, it was apparent that a trip to the vet would not be necessary.

Teddy was gone.

My grandmother said he'd been moving around a bit this morning when she tried to feed him, but he didn't seem interested in food. The flies had already begun to swarm where he was unable to move around to defecate. I saw that his eyes were open, so I snapped my fingers right in front of his nose. No response. I opened the gate, nudging him with it. No response. My plans for the afternoon had gone from a sorrowful car ride to a more somber burial.

I gave my grandmother the news, and made my way to the shed for some gloves and a shovel. Her house sits on roughly 40 acres, so the location of the burial plot hardly mattered. She chose a place next to an old hen house, close enough to the house that scavenging animals would be less likely to come up on him. We spent close to two hours just hammering away at the soft ground. I mentioned that he was a Chow, so tiny he was not. Even with the gloves, I managed to rub a few blisters into my hands, and further ruined my tennis shoes climbing around in a hole.

The task was done, I went on inside.

My grandmother told me a variety of stories about the happenings in my extended family. Donna and my cousin Carrie Dawn will be in Tennessee for good very soon to be a teacher. It will be good for my grandmother to have family close again, because lord knows I don't get over there enough, even though I only live fifteen minutes away. I have mixed feelings about why, but none of them are good excuses.

She out of the blue asked me if there was anything of my grandfather's that I wanted. Besides being taken aback by the question, nothing came to mind. Small keepsakes don't seem to make that big of an impression on me. Some day I'd like to have his military pins and badges, but I doubt anything I did with them would do them justice. Things still just aren't the same for me since he's been gone. I realize that more and more as I get older.

I think I could use a nice, long nap.