For Sadie

June 4, 2009 - 51 Comments by Mishelle - Familija

I still remember looking up the stairwell of the apartment.  Michael was standing there holding this little ball of fur.  I was shocked.  I had no idea that on this particular day I would come home and be a Mama.  It happened, though.    A Mama and a Papa were born.  Sadie was our first child.

Her puppy breath was intoxicating.  I was in love with it.  People called me gross, but I didn’t care.  I loved to feel that little breath on my cheek and the smell was just right.   She would gnaw and bite and run around like a drunken lunatic.  Puppy Sadie was an amazing little creature with big paws, a fluffy tale, and eyes that instantly melted you.

She, of course, also became our excuse to leave gatherings—that we didn’t want to be at—early.

“Oh, we have to get home to let the dog out,” we would say.

One night we came home from some church gathering.  Neither of us wanted to be there but we were there to make my parents happy. You know how that goes? When we came home we found the elephant figurines (the very first ones) that Michael bought for me, in unrecognizable pieces.  There was this little space in the figurine that was perfect for holding a necklace or a pair of ear-rings.  I had placed this great necklace there and we didn’t move it off the coffee table before we left. I guess we didn’t figure that Sadie would pull it down.   I never did see that necklace again, and I wasn’t about to go searching the poop to find it.

Sadie was still a puppy when we left Buffalo for New Orleans in 1996.   She was rambunctious to the nth degree.  For years, or so it seemed, she would hunker down and “show her ass” to us.  Papa loved to rile her up like this.    Oh Papa’s little girl she was. Michael always joked that when Sadie died he was going to have her stuffed and put on display.  It’s quite ironic that her fur has all but fallen out so that he couldn’t do it even if he was sick in the head and wanted to.   The joke was just that...a joke.

In New Orleans Sadie got herself into all sorts of trouble.  She chewed mouldings, tore apart a down feather comforter, knawed on the kitchen chairs, but the worst thing I can recall happened one night after I came home from work.  I had a leftover shrimp po’boy sandwhich saved for Michael.  He was hungry and the leftover bites were going to be very well received by his belly.   He set the plate down on the nightstand in our bedroom to get something to drink and within seconds Sadie was up on the bed and scarfing down the sandwich.   I can still hear Michael yelling, “DAMMIT SADIE!!!!”

I think that very next weekend we got Summer for Sadie.  We got her to help Sadie through the day, to keep her occupied.  We thought, for sure, another dog would help Sadie tone down her puppy attitude.  And we were right.   Summer, even though she’s quite the shit to this day, changed Sadie.  Their relationship is different and unique, to say the least.  Sometimes I think they are lesbians, sometimes I think Summer thinks she’s the pretty sister that gets all the boyfriends and Sadie’s the spinster who’s never been kissed, and sometimes I think that Sadie is the mom that takes her kid’s shit regardless of how much it annoys her or makes her shaker her head in disbelief.    Sadie has taken Summer’s shit for so many years:  Face humping.  Bitten jowels. Obnoxious barks.  You name it, Summer’s inflicted it upon Sadie.  But in true Sadie form she would just look past it and love.

Sadie, our chocolate lab, is truly a big old sack of brown sugar.   There hasn’t been a moment in this dog’s life that hasn’t been love-filled.  She’s watched my belly grow four times.  She’s smelled four hospital blankets of four newborn babies, to get their scent.  She’s watched over and slept beside a bassinet with a baby in it for years in a row.   She’s licked the faces of toddlers.  She’s slept at the foot of our bed, at my feet, or on my side.  She’s slept in front of the doors of the children’s rooms.  She’s barked to alert us of trouble.  She’s barked at TV game shows whose buzzer sounded like our doorbell thus forcing us to stop watching said TV game show.   She’s made friends with every person and animal that she’s come in contact with.  She is love.   When I think of the word love, I cant’ help but think of Sadie.

Here lately, though, I haven’t been able to recognize my Sadie Girl.  She’s lost all her fluffy fur; the fur that I cursed as it clogged my vacuum up repeatedly.  She’s been afflicted with these horrible lesions on her skin that makes her stinky and scaly.  She’s lost that bark that was booming and deep, though there are still times she tries.  She can’t do anything that she used to do.  She gets up. Goes outside. She shivers.  She lays down.  She sleeps.  She is just there.  Her eyes are even a little vacant;  it’s totally heart-breaking.    The hardest thing is how frustrated we have become with her.  I’ve tried to explain to the kids that they need to stop being frustrated by her, but it’s so easy to do.   This we are not proud of.

Michael and I have been talking for weeks about calling the vet to make an appointment to put her to sleep.  Yesterday I called and the appointment is today at noon.  Michael will be taking her by himself.    Oddly comforting in that he got her alone and now he’s letting her go alone.  Oddly.

Last night when Michael told the kids about Sadie’s appointment, Olivia burst into tears.  I was editing the pictures for this post and my sight was suddenly blurred by tears.  I feel so bad for Olivia.  She’s cared for the dogs so much over the past year+, and she’s done a remarkable job for a girl of only ten.  This is definitely going to be hard on her.  She’s strong, though, and I have faith that she will be able to channel this grief into even more of an appreciation for her love of animals.  I love her compassion and I think this will grow it even more.

I guess I just have to remember all the wonderful times Sadie has shared with us.  We’ll have been married 14 years this September and Sadie just turned 13 in February.  That’s going to be the hardest part.  Most of the memories I have up till now involve Sadie.   I just never want the memories of Sadie to lie dormant within me.  Fourteen years from now I’d like to be telling my grandchildren about the time Sadie got a hold of my first ever elephant figurine.  Or how she ate a whole tube sock once.   Or how she dragged me to the ground when I was four months pregnant with Mikey.  Or how she used to tell me that my period was gonna be here soon by smelling my crotch in a certain way.  Or how she used to lick the little next door neighbor boy’s feet through our fence in New Orleans.   Or how she chewed up our headboard and scratched up our foot board.   Or how she thought she was human.

No, she didn’t think she was human…she knew she was!  Indeed this dog never thought of herself as a dog.

She’s Sadie Girl Lane and this post was written for her
She’s Sadie Girl Lane and she is the one who gave me my first taste of motherhood.
She’s Sadie Girl Lane and I will always love and miss her.