My mother was a champion in the realm of opening her heart and home to creatures of all sizes and species and physical condition. We had anacondas with tick problems, we had tortoises that needed to keep warm in the winter, we had a squirrel with a broken jaw, we had a pregnant sand boa that got bitten by a pregnant mouse, we had parakeets that kept pecking at the wall paper and made themselves sick, and we had two gloriously adorable, gorgeous and normal (except for the fact that they would sit and bark endlessly at the cupboard where the dog biscuits lived) Labrador retrievers. Teddy and Tally. Father and son. Imps in the area of believing that the grass was greener on the other side of the front door.
These two were the court jesters of the family. They would tumble in the living room and on cue, we all leapt to grab a cut glass dish here, a carved table there, to prevent breakage, but their unbridled romping joy created tears of laughter from all of us. In addition to this, if one of them was a wee bit slow coming in the back door, the screen would catch the very tip of his tail and then it was the entire household’s job to grab the bleeding tip so that the profuse happy wagging would not toss blood spots all over the house. Pure joy, these two, even though we found that having two was more like having a whole herd.
Teddy and Tally were allowed to run free in the backyard but the front ‘out there’ was what intrigued them both, passionately, relentlessly. We humans needed to be on guard for any possible slip up in perhaps not closing the door tightly, or making sure they were back back when we came and went. It was habit for the household. We all knew and obeyed.
And then one day there was a slip up. No one knows how this happened. It seemed to happen when no one was around, which of course is impossible, but they both got out.
Each of us scoured the neighborhood calling and calling. Neighbors helped. No sign. We alerted the authorities, just in case. And then in the middle of the night we got the call from the police department.
They had both been hit by a car on a major road.
Tally was killed and Teddy was blinded in one eye.
My mother’s heartache was palpable, but she kept it contained. She rallied the Florence Nightingale in herself and she poured herself into tending to Teddy, loving him and keeping us all together. She never spoke about Tally, but she would watch Teddy out the kitchen window with tears and love in her eyes. She opened so many profound doors for our family for which every one of us walked forward into the world with a more vibrant, caring understanding of life. I hope that she is seeing this from above.