Wednesday, June 10, 2015
LITTLEZ
On Friday, May 22nd, 2015 we put our little Yorkshire Terrier, LITTLEZ, to his final rest. Littlez had been suffering with bleeding in his urine for weeks, and my daughter had been giving him medicine prescribed by his veterinarian, and for a while it appeared as though he was getting better, but after the third week, he started peeing blood again.
Littlez was my son-in-law’s gift to my oldest daughter almost eleven years ago, and for the past ten plus years, he and the other dogs, Gordo (a Poodle), and Delilah (a Jack Russle Terrier mixed with Chijuajuah), became part of our growing family – first when we lived in North Bergen, NJ, and afterwards when we moved to Bergenfield, where we’ve lived since late 2006.
Littlez was a crazy little thing. Oftentimes, he’d drive my wife crazy with his high pitched barking, and this is one thing that I believe we miss now, that ironically, we did not at the time, when Littlez was among us. Littlez barked at anything, and would go crazy, barking away whenever he wanted to be taken out to the deck in our back yard. He was a wild little thing, and he was fun. But we had to keep an eye on him.
On several occasions, he escaped out into the streets while we lived in North Bergen, and went down into Tonnelle Avenue, crossing the highway, and running into the Pathmark parking lot, where a family picked him up, and reading the dog tags on him, brought him safely back to us. That was a miracle.
On another occasion, Littlez went out of the house and ran up the block, while everyone ran after him. I got into my Jeep and followed him, going ahead of him, and got out, and called out to him, “Chiquitin!” Come Chiquitin! Come!” , opening the door to the Jeep and opening my arms to him, and he ran right to me and into the Jeep! Answering to “Chiquitin,” which means Little.
Here in Bergenfield, he ran out the front door and escaped and was picked up by a family, and I went riding around the block, looking for him, and found him being carried by these people, another family. I called out to him, recognizing him, and they came over and gave him to me.
A week before his last day with us, I sensed Littlez was leaving us. I felt strongly that he was going out the front door, never coming back, and I prayed, “No Lord, please don’t let him go,” but it was not that he was going to escape, but that his time to leave us was approaching, and because I was so close to him, and he was so close to me; the Lord was letting me know the time was approaching for Littlez to leave us.
For the next several days, I was in denial. While Littlez could, he would come up the stairs, and sit next to me. Oftentimes before, he would come up the stairs, when he was well, just so that I would pick him up and cradle him in my arms as one cradles a baby, and he would fall asleep in them. He was my baby.
Littlez slept between us every night, and I miss him sorely. The last couple of weeks before that awful day, he had become so emaciated that he barely weighed anything at all, and one could feel his spinal cord on his back. Littlez’s absence has caused me great pain and sorrow, and I often find myself extremely upset over his passing. It is amazing how attached one can become to pet. Everyone loved Littlez, but nobody loved Littlez like me, and I know that Littlez loved everyone, but he always came to me, though he came to all of us. He was our dog – he was everyone’s pet – he was part of our family.
Since that terrible day, I have had moments of unconsolable sorrow, and have wept greatly over this little pet. I have had pets before, but none have ever affected me as Littlez has. Thankfully, Gordo, our Poodle is with us, and he too sleeps with us, and keeps us company. In the days following Littlez’s departure, Gordo would often go throughout the house, looking for Littlez, then to the back yard where they would often go, sometimes come upstairs, and not finding Littlez, leave the bedroom, and return to the living room downstairs. Amazing.
Until last night, I thought I had adjusted to Littlez’s loss, and had moved on, but as I returned home last night and sat in my driveway, getting ready to go in, the memory of Littlez returned to me, I looked at his picture, and the last pictures I took of him before taking him to the vet that day, and a torrent of emotions overwhelmed me, and I could not contain myself. I could not hide it from my wife. Last night I cried myself to sleep. And today, and it appears for the foreseeable future, at least for the next couple of days perhaps, I’ll be in various state of melancholy over this, as I adjust and hopefully heal from it eventually. I don’t know if I will ever want to have any other pets again. I don’t want to go through this again, and wouldn’t want anyone else in our family to have to go through it either.
Littlez; I will miss you little guy. You were my little buddy. My heart aches for you my little friend, and I am heartbroken for you. I’ll miss you sorely.
