I don't usually update this from home base (Toms River), but there's a theme here.
I've been in Toms River for the past six days. I made the trip from my work (about 2 hours) to hang out at home for Fathers Day (my first in the country since college!) and just relax a bit with my family and friends and animals.
Sunday, my parents and older brother and I went up north to spend Dad Day itself with some other fathers I'm related to-- my uncle, my grandfather. I rode with big brother, who is a fine driver, but for whatever reason, the stars were aligned, the sun was in my face, there was stop and go traffic, my medicine makes me groggy, I felt pretty sick for the majority of the trip. Know what though? The irony found within my love of roadtrips and travelling in general is that I am the car-sickest person I think I know. I mean, I've been known to get super nauseous, even need to stop and actually get sick, while driving. While driving! So just imagine me as a passenger for more than five minutes. Dramamine? Makes me sicker. I'm hopeless.
The other real reason I came home was to see my dog. Rumple's been riddled with various types of cancer for the past year and a half or more. She's really hung in there; labs are notoriously stoic. She was diagnosed with a second cancer a few months ago and put on the same pain medicine I take for my pain disorder, and responded so well that we've just kind of kept things that way since then. I was glad to move back home when my funding at Rutgers was up this spring, and hang out with my dog all the time. She's a good companion. She's slept on or next to my bed for years and years. She's my bud. And she's not comfortable anymore. So we have come to the very difficult conclusion that it's time, and will be visiting the vet for the last time this evening.
In our last days together, I've thought a lot about her company over the years. We got her when I was a freshman in high school, around the time that I had mono. The little puppy would sleep all curled up on my shoulder as I napped the days away. However, an even earlier memory of sweet Rumple is when I first met her. Mom and my big brother brought her home from a shelter, absolutely frothing at the mouth. My reaction to the very tiny lab-pit bull mix? Holy crap guys, way to pick the rabid one. She was perfectly healthy though, aside from being royally car sick. After we lost our first dog, Abby, who loved car rides, we vowed that any dog who subsequently joined the family would be brought everywhere. Except, Rumple hates the car so much we often have to take her out the back door and pretend we're not going for a car ride. In fact, training her as a puppy, when she was in big trouble, we'd just rattle the keys and she'd go hide in a corner. Ridiculous.
I took her to the beach for a little while a few nights ago. It was a warm night and no one was around. It's not a long car ride, but we both needed the sea air to settle our stomachs as we walked a few blocks in the sand. Know what though? I wouldn't have her any other way. Someone needs to sympathize with me about carsickness. Luckily our relationship was about more than that. It was about eating cheese and walking on the beach and keeping my feet warm at night and petting her on the nose and playing outside and just being good buds.
I'm going to miss her.
