but they also crash.
Last week the Knight clan set out for the summer family vacation. With a car stuffed to the gills and a credit card itching to be maxed we left for a week of sun and fun in the Outer Banks, just off the coast of North Carolina. We had our own lakeside rental house, complete with our own pool, game room, and home theater….. All within a 5 minute walk of the beach. Yep, it was setting up to be a good week.
I have two boys that are ages 5 and 3. Upon arrival, the vast expanse of things to do and see left them almost too excited for words. In addition to spending time playing on the beach and swimming in the pool, I took them surf fishing and we even went out crabbing on both the beach and by the lake. They both made short work of our trips to the pizza, french fry, and ice cream stands. Life for them was very good.
I tried hard not to constantly look at my watch and play the, "what would I be doing right now if I was at work?" vacation game. At one point I seriously had to think hard to myself about whether it was Tuesday or Wednesday. I did know that it was without a doubt the best time that I had ever had on a vacation. It was perfect.
And then the phone call came…..
We’ve had two dogs for over 10 years. Otis is our chocolate lab; he became a member of the family 11 years ago when we got him as a puppy. He’s just a big, lazy, and lovable dog. Our other dog Smokey became ours by circumstance. He was a stray dog that we took in 10 years ago. He was spotted as a puppy darting between cars in the Lemoyne bottleneck at the height of rush hour. After unsuccessful attempts through local signs and the newspaper to find his owner we decided to keep him on a "trail basis." That was over ten years ago. We’ve never been sure what kind of dog Smokey is, there’s some sheppard and collie in him, but he's mostly just a, "mutt." We think before we found him that he may have been abused; he was always a bit nervous and leery of other people and other dogs. From day one, he was a handful, but he was our handful. As those with pets know, they truly do become a member of the family.
Last Thursday night we were at our beach house just getting ready to sit down to a big dinner. Another day had been spent lazing by the beach and the pool, my kids were playing with their new hermit crab, my wife was just getting out of the shower, and I was putting the finishing touches on the salad when my cell phone rang. I stepped out to the deck to take the call. It was the girl from the kennel where we had boarded our dogs for the week. Suddenly, unexpectedly, somehow, our Smokey was gone. I hung up the phone and tried to grasp what was going on. Here I am standing on a deck at our beach house having the perfect family vacation, and now I have to go tell the family that our beloved family dog has suddenly died at the kennel, 500 miles away.
It was very hard on all of us, and needless to say our perfect family vacation wasn’t so perfect anymore. It’s one thing to lose your family dog, but to have it happen while you’re on your summer vacation, miles away and unable to control the situation is really rough. The only way for them to keep Smokey until we could come home to get him was to put him in a freezer. The thought of that was horrible, but logistically there was no other way.
As you can imagine, the 8 ½ hour ride home was much more somber than the festive mood of the ride down. Coming home from your summer vacation is always hard. We were coming home to pick up and bury our family dog that was being kept in a freezer.
Our 3 year old son was able to somewhat understand what happened. He understands the basics that Smokey is gone and he isn’t coming home, but much of it thankfully went over his head. If nothing else, our 5 year old son got his first lesson about life and death. When I told him that Smokey had died, he cried on my shoulder for about 15 minutes and asked me a lot of questions. The kind of questions asked by a 5 year old trying to grasp the concept of death. When through tears he told me that he didn’t ever want me to die, it was a bittersweet moment for me.
My in-laws live in a remote area of Dauphin County, and they allowed us to bury Smokey there. I used a shovel and a pick axe to dig a hole near the woods, fighting back the tears and sweat as I did it. I took on the task of picking Smokey up from the kennel. Wrapped in a blanket I carried him from the car to the hole that I had dug. We had a small family ceremony where we passed around pictures and talked about all of the good memories. I then reluctantly grabbed the shovel and began to cover him up. My 5 year old son, in tears, placed a special rock from his rock collection on the grave.
For those of you that have never had a family dog and don't understand our sorrow, I understand. For many people a dog is just that..... A dog, and I get that. But for those of you that have ever had or lost a family dog, you know exactly where I'm coming from. They truly do become a part of the family, and their loss, especially compounded by these circumstances, is hard.
The good news is that I know that the Knight summer vacation of 2007 will end much better than this one. This one couldn't have ended much worse.
