My husband and I were raising our grandson, Sean for our oldest daughter, Kristy, who was in the Army stationed in Germany at the time. Our youngest daughter Anna and her husband had also come home from the Navy with their eighteen month old daughter, Katie. The year was 1992.
My aunt and uncle had just succumbed to cancer within 6 months of each other. Aunt Katy in April of that year and then Uncle Joe in September. Since they had sort of taken over as parents and grandparents after my mother and dad passed away fifteen years before, it was a sad and lonely time.
October’s cold dark nights came swiftly. On one of these nights I was standing in the room at the far end of the house ironing. Sean who was 6 at the time was also in the room with me, playing. He heard it first! “Grandma, someone is knocking!” No one ever came to that door as it is in the back of the house. We looked outside into the darkness and there on the back porch was this very large dog with a pink collar standing on the porch! Jet black and shiny, it just stood there! I said, “Sean, we will have to deal with this dog in the morning.”
Morning came and I was telling our daughter Anna about our episode the night before and about someone knocking and leaving us with a dog. I opened the kitchen door and little Katie squeezed around my legs and when she saw the dog she squealed in her own baby talk, “Der’s our Abbie!” I looked at Anna and said, “Well, we know her name!” What does a little tiny child see? How would she know this large, black, Doberman dog whose tail was cropped too short and flat against her body was even a female?
Abbie adopted us! Why someone knocked on our door and left us this dog, I thought it a miracle. It was as though an angel knew our loneliness. Abbie was the gentlest, most gracious of dogs. She listened to what she was told, she played with the little ones, she went with my husband when he developed diabetes walking three times a day quite far to get his health back.
Life went on, years went by, our grandson, then twelve left to go and live with his mother. Anna remarried and left us to begin her own new life. Our son Joseph who was still in the Army would come home and leave again. Abbie was always here with us no matter what happened.
Illness came to her swiftly in 2005 with swelling in her body and legs. We always went outside at 6:30 in the morning, no matter the weather, I with my coffee sitting in the chair, and she would walk around the perimeter of the yard, come back to me as if to say, “can I go around again?” This particular day it had snowed and she got too far out in the yard and just fell flat on her belly. Weighing 90 pounds I thought that both of us would have a heart attack by the time we came up out of the yard and I helped her to the steps of the porch. Yelling for my husband to come and pick her up we waited patiently, breathing heavily. He picked her up and took her into the house where we began our few days vigil.
Her prescription was not helping now. Abbie wanted to lay right next to me and knowing she had to go to the bathroom, I put towels and plastic under her and told her, “It is okay to go on these, Abbie.” So she did.
Taking her to the veterinarian that last time on March 9, 2005 was one of the saddest times in my life. I heard from people all across the internet in e-mail messages that they were crying with me. They told me of their own heart breaking last days with their beloved animals. Their words meant so much to me.
The attendants went out and put Abbie on a gurney and placed her on the steel table. She was shifting and moving about as though in pain, her deep brown eyes sadly looking at me although she made not one sound. I looked at her back feet and found that when the men brought her in and laid her on the table they had caught her back foot under the gurney. They say that by the time a dog cries that a human could never stand the pain.
The doctor shaved her leg and inserted the needle while I was holding her and telling her how we would miss her and to wait for us at the “Rainbow Bridge!” My husband who by that time was sobbing with me and holding us both in his arms. After thirteen years with us, in one instant our Abbie was gone from us.
It is still very difficult to write this story, even after three years. Her blankie and pillow are still on the floor in my room. Her cremains are in the green plastic box on my dresser with porcelain bunnies, puppies, her collar and tags and last letter about her dog license all there together.
I am blessed to have known this dog. She was the very essence of why a family has a dog as a pet. She never left my side, she was here with me when I was on many days too preoccupied and too busy to pay lots of attention to her. Through Abbie I learned to truly take the time to smell the roses. I learned through Abbie that in one second a life can change. To be thankful for each second we have on this good Earth!
Yes…we did! A year ago our daughter moved to Pittsburgh and could not take her black lab whose name is Jezebel. Although different than Abbie was and not quite as lady like in her doings and one who is rebellious and so playful, that will be another story to tell. Our hearts are wonderful for they can love over and over while still grieving for something lost.
