Celebrating Tommy’s 16th Birthday on the 6th Day After We Said Goodbye
Today marks 6 days since we said goodbye to our beautiful boy Tommy. But it also marks what would have been the start of his 16th trip around the sun.
The feelings of losing him are still raw, although the waves of panic that brought on my inconsolable sobbing have subsided. Now, when I lay in bed, I imagine his soft fur getting in my mouth as he nuzzles up close, deep inside my armpit. I place the length of my arm over the length of his back. We lay like that for hours; I now have only that memory.
I had hoped that Tommy would reach his 16th birthday, and I even had visions in my mind that we’d have a party for him like we did one year in Wellfleet. On today, his birthday, I want to remember my boy’s life so that I can continue to mourn and come to accept his death. This somehow feels like the right, and even healthy, thing to do.
I always said that I first fell in love with Tommy at the luggage claim at Boston’s Logan Airport. Mike drove to the curb outside baggage claim, and I dodged in to pick up a 10-week old puppy who I regularly described as being “no larger than a sesame seed.” He was really more like 5 pounds. Tommy’s puppy breath smelled like milk.
We started talking to Tommy’s breeder Robbin Phillips a full two-years before he was born. Robbin named Tommy’s litter after colognes, and I joked that his name could have been Shalimar — that quip always provoked laughs.
We never thought of changing Tommy’s name, and we embraced it fully by giving him the American Kennel Club (AKC) call name “Tommy’s Good Scents.” Tommy salami — that’s what I’d called him.
His mama’s name was Millie, and his daddy’s name was Charles; I understood that Tommy’s dad lived somewhere in the British Isles and made the trip across the Atlantic and North America to Millie as a sperm sample. No matter how it all happened, I am forever indebted to those two dogs for bringing Tommy into the world so that we could love him as we always will.
As Tommy grew up, he wasn’t really a kisser. But when Tommy was a baby, he was a big kisser. Mike and I learned this about him when we reached Cape Cod where we had started only a few month before in February of 2002 rebuilding an old house. From that point forward, Tommy became a fixture amidst the drywall, sawdust, paint, rosin paper, tools and contractor garbage bags. Tommy was in the middle of the chaos, taking it all in.
Tommy was quickly beginning to get his education, and this dog was going to see, experience and learn more than I ever could have imagined or described.
He’d learn about the salt marsh and the disgusting smelling marsh muffins — clumps of oyster and crab remains, matted together in a mess of grass and mud — that were irresistible to eat. He’d learn that eating this marsh junk would make him sick for days, and he’d learn to never again eat the marsh’s pickings, even if they smelled delicious to his hound nose.
He learned more smells from the garbage at the restaurant High Toss Pizza, and he’d learn that being accepted into the dog pack that’d become his best friends — Yager, Ebida and Guinness — would make him their posse’s baby. This is where he also learned from Yager what the alpha dog was all about.
He’d learn from these dogs how to play chase, swim in the fresh waters at Great Pond, and even venture out into the waves into Cape Cod Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.
Tommy’s best Boston pal was an Airedale named George. Every morning at 6:15 a.m., I’d call my friend David to alert him that Tommy and I were about to round the corner of Dartmouth and Montgomery streets. George would stand outside his front door, Tommy would round the corner, and the two would freeze. Slowly they’d creep forward, stalking one another before breaking into a sprint that ended up in the dog game of “I’m gunna eat your face.” And then David and I would walk off to the dog park for some morning socialization.
That was Tommy’s routine during his earliest days: adventure, friends, people and situations.
As far as I was concerned, Tommy went where I went.
If ever questioned, I’d simply explain that my dog was better behaved than most children, and that if a child were allowed somewhere, then my dog should be allowed to enter too. By and large, Bostonians understood this common sense reasoning, and that’s how Tommy went where I went.
Tommy liked to sing, too. His earliest songs were a series of quick “heep heep heep heep heep” expressions, with the final note always ending with a tone that sounded as though he were about to ask a question, but then resolved into plea to anyone listening that his wish be granted. He did this, and I fell for it every time — no wish was too big.
He was a fixture in my office at 50 Franklin Street, laying on a pillow beside my desk and occasionally walking into other offices to say hello. He liked his spot by the window overlooking Washington Street in the heart of Downtown Crossing.
He liked that the office: it was a block from Boston Common, and he never failed to remind me with his “heep heep heep” at 4:30 p.m. that it was time for to go to the Common. He’d get restless, look at me expectantly, cock his head and let out his heeps — it was time to go. We went, and he ran, played stick and played.
Fun and adventure defined Tommy’s days, and this is probably why he didn’t mind change; somehow, he always managed to adapt with ease.
Hillary joined Tommy when he was only 5 years old. Stepping into the role Yager groomed him for, Tommy became top dog. He made Hillary a part of his pack, just as he had been v. invited into so many other dog and human packs.
With Hillary, Tommy shared food, explored parks, discovered scents and nuzzled one another in bed, on sofas and during long car drives.
Yager, Ebida and Guinness all passed, and so did George. Hillary became Tommy’s “ride or die” and they were rarely apart. Together they lived, sniffed, slept, nuzzled, played and adventured. And so passed the next the next 11 years.
Annual cycles came and went. Tommy became a full-time Washingtonian. Weekends on Cape Cod became less frequent. Winters in D.C. gave way to becomming a Washingtonian year-round. Drives north from Washington to Massachusets frequently included a stay in New York City, and road trips out west to Los Angeles and back again.
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More years rolled by. Tommy bounded into the stream at Rock Creak Park or into Duck Creek across Uncle Tim’s Bridge, and Hillary would watch him and even follow him. Often he and Hillary would run ahead of me and Mike and we’d then hide behind a tree and watch them stop sniff and think about looking for us. Maybe they’d rounded a bend on the trail, or maybe they be yards and yards ahead. The always kept us in eyeshot.
On some occasions when they ran ahead, Mike and I would play hide and seek with them. Tommy and Hillary would sniff up ahead, then we hide behind a tree. They’d take a break from their sniffing, freeze as they looked for us, and then come running back to find us. The hide and seek game ended when we’d jump out from behind the tree and yell “boo”— the pac was reunited.
Tommy became less and less willing to respond to my whistle — he was a big dog now, and he set his own terms. He’d test me to see if I’d give in to his decision to travel one way down a path when I’d insist on going another way. Sheepishly, the staring contest would end as he’d lower his alerted, cocked head into a relaxed position, wag his tale and stroll toward me as he acquiesced.
Baths with Hillary became one of our favorite activities where we shared. Car wash towel drying was when I cradled Tommy’s head in a bath towel to dry him. Tommy closed his eyes and let me show him my love. Hillary was the same, and I frequently wrapped them both in the same towel and dried then together in one loving heap of wet towel and dog.
And alongside all this regular fun and adventure came the steady drumbeat of time and change. Tommy never blinked, and he remained the happiest boy who always knew to remind me about dinner time, when the clock was just about 4:15 p.m. each and every day.
Never was he not with either me or Mike, accompanying us on errands. He had even more learning and experiences: a drive to Los Angeles from D.C. and back to experience a warm California winter. And even repeat of this trip the following year.
Time continued to move forward, relentlessly.
Then, Tommy, Mike and I said goodbye to Hillary. Mike and I could have let the sadness consume us, but we instead chose to pour our love into Tommy salami.
Tommy’s arthritis was getting worse, and his delicious food must have not been as good as it once was (his no longer wanted to eat more than once a day). Plus a chronic sinus infection required antibiotics and I resigned myself to the fact that Tommy could be taking these for the rest of his life.
His walks were slower. But on some days, he’d refuse to go home and he’d even seem to want to take me to the store where the cashier always gave him cookies. Washington, D.C. was never as friendly as Boston, but some establishments welcomed Tommy and remembered who Tommy and Hillary were.
Time is so cruel, but at the same time, it’s what gave us the gift of so many sunsets and sunrises with our boy. It’s what gave him the chance to see what he saw, learn what he leared, meet who he met, and learn and learned.
We made the call, and for two days every remaining moment was spent loving our boy.
By the time the lap of love vet Dr. Nora showed up on Sunday at noon, I had Tommy my side. My arm was on the length of his back and my middle and index finger massaged the spot right behind Tommy’s ear that always seemed to make him go limp. We laid together, but I couldn’t bear to look into his eyes; I just wanted him to be comforted.
And there he laid within my arm and by my side until his last breath in the spot that he made on my side of the bed on top of my pillow. As top dog, that was the spot he always claimed. I let him make his bed in that spot; it was the perfect spot from which to see the afternoon sky.
I carried Tommy down to Dr. Nora’s car; I wanted him to be comfortable and I knew how he liked to lay down in the car. Even though all what was left of Tommy was his physical body, I only cared about his comfort as I walked those terrible last steps.
And then Mike and I held each other and cried so hard in the middle of the parking lot. We had just said goodbye to our boy, and we were so, so sad.
One thinks of a lifetime as being a long time. We humans have a limited capacity for fathoming time when I was in my early 30s, it seemed to expand endlessly. I’m going to be 50 soon, and I now realize how time’s preciousness is something that try to remember and should acknowledge. Yet, I rarely do. Because when I think this way, it’s because I’m being faced with a harsh reality that forces me to face the reality of its fleetingness.
I will remember my almost 16-year old Tommy for the rest of my life, because he was always a part of every adventure and journey I took. Time cannot take that away from me.
