Letter to Bessie Mae

You left us on Valentine’s Day. Ironic or apropos? You were most certainly Love on four legs. You joined our little family in 2007—or 2008, judging from the photos from back then. Michael was still at Treasure Hill and that was the last place they dumped you. A stray in the system, twice adopted, and twice abandoned again before he met you.  That fateful day when he went into the kennel to give you a little scratch behind the ear and you faced the rear of the run, too depressed to acknowledge him changed all our lives. That was it for my soft-hearted husband. He adopted you that day and brought you home. 

We named you Bessie Mae or Bessamae depending on how it rolled off the tongue. The shelter had dubbed you Skittles but that was just silly. The ridiculous moniker did spark a memory for me from an adoption event at Wild Oats. I’d met you before. Must have been fate. You were a bit of a handful at first, full of energy and desperate to please. You tried too hard and had a couple of annoying habits but Abby the blind Westie took to you immediately and so did we. 

In those early days, you loved to run. And you’d chase anything that would run with you, from you, or after you. One of my favorite memories is you tearing around the big back yard of the Birchwood house with Ava, Kyla’s King Charles Spaniel. And once we moved to Austin, you discovered the deer. 

We found some old photos of you and we both laughed and both laughs were tinged with sorrow. We miss you. You are everywhere I look in this house. I gaze into the back forty and see you there, in those early years, leaping through the tall sage grass in pursuit of a white tail deer bounding toward the tree line. You’d come back, likely wet from splashing through the creek back there, your tongue hanging out, looking so pleased with yourself but contrite for not coming back when we’d called. Just contrite enough. It was hard to stay mad at those soulful brown eyes. 

Since Abby left us, it’s just been you (and the cats). The number one dog for the last ten years. You slowed down and got thicker but then, who of us hasn’t? You never wavered in your love of everyone you met. People, especially children, other dogs, and even cats. Okay, so maybe you didn’t love cats, but you were very tolerant of them, and perhaps a bit wary. (Probably a story there somewhere.) Chaucer is still looking for you. Three days gone and that little gray tabby cat is still checking the house in your favorite spots. He misses you too. 

You never seemed to mind going blind. You just bumped your way around the room until you found what you were looking for. You struggled to get up the steps as you grew feeble but you always tried. It was clear to us that you were in decline for a while now but your passing still seemed so sudden. 

Valentine’s Day will always be bittersweet. We love you, Bess. Say hey to Abby at the Rainbow Bridge. We’ll be along one day.