Wile E. Coyote

Gone to the Rainbow Bridge

November 19, 2008

My memory of you is not of the last time I saw you lying on the floor unable to move with so much suffering in your sweet brown eyes but of the very first time I saw you in the park so many years ago.

It was a bad year for me. I lost my father to cancer and the man I had always loved moved out of state. I was lost and heartbroken just surviving from one day to the next. There was a park not far from the pet shop where I worked and I began to spend my lunch hour there every day just trying to find peace and courage to go on. I saw you there one day and offered you my lunch because you were so thin. You were such a beautiful boy. Did someone abandon you in the park? Were you lost? Why wasnt someone looking for you? These were questions I asked myself because I could not believe someone was not heartbroken to have lost you. You were still there the following day and the next. Well as it turned out it was their loss and my gain and though they never felt your loss I feel it now more deeply than words can describe. There is a hole in the fabric of my life that matches the hole in my heart.   

You were shy at first and whether that was your natural disposition or distrust caused by untrustworthy humans I will never know but I worked gradually at gaining your trust by bringing you food each day. You kept your distance and I respected it. One day I saw you from the window where I worked running after a pick-up. It was a busy road and I was scared for you. I wondered what the story was there, whether you just liked to chase cars as some dogs do or if you recognized the pick-up as belonging to someone you loved, I didnt know. I have never since known you to chase after cars unless it was my own. But how could they have abandoned you? I knew even then you were special but then all dogs are special whether the humans around them realize it or not. 

I continued to bring you food in the park. Every day it became harder for me to walk away from you. I thought about you all the time there alone in the park, perhaps waiting for the human in that pick-up to come back for you just as I was waiting for the man I loved to come back for me. The sadness I saw in your eyes was a reflection of my own. We had both been abandoned by someone we loved. One day without any encouragement from me you walked over to lay down beside me and rested your head in my lap as though to say, Okay, Im yours now, do with me what you will. I drove back to the park that night still not totally convinced that you were living there. I thought perhaps you were hanging out in the park by day and going home at night. I found you sleeping in an alleyway next to the park curled up in some bushes. You lifted your head to look at the car and I recall how your eyes glowed in the headlights. I knew I could not leave you there. I called you to me and you did not hesitate to jump in the car. It was like you were waiting for me to decide I was yours as well. I took you home with me and the first thing you did was jump up in the middle of the bed.

Well, what can I say? I was dense but it was because you were such a beautiful boy, such a special dog, you see. I still could not accept that someone was not missing you. I ran a lost and found ad but no one answered it. So then I decided to find you another home because I felt like I could not give you the home you deserved. A man who owned a cattle ranch came to see you and I thought he would be a perfect match for you. I thought you would be happy working on a cattle ranch. I handed him your leash and walked with you out to his pick-up but when you realized what was happening you started pulling away, struggling like your life depended on it. He handed me back your leash, realizing as I finally did, that you and I belonged together, and you did not leave my side again for sixteen years.

I named you Wile E Coyote after that crazy coyote that never stopped trying to catch the roadrunner, and the name fit you to a tee because if ever a dog was wily it was you. There was cunning behind your sparkling brown eyes and it was never more apparent than when there was a stranger in the house. Confrontation wasnt your style. You were smart enough to realize that you were no brawny pit bull who could bring down an opponent twice your size. You were a medium sized dog with fine, almost delicate bone structure. So rather than confrontation you disarmed people by befriending them so that you could keep a close eye on them, most especially men. If they had no objection you would lay across their laps to prevent them from making any sudden moves and if they or I did object, you sat close and watched them intently. If they got up to walk around you stalked them. You did not trust easily, and if and until they earned your trust you were determined to come between them and me. If they dared touch me you were right there barking so fiercely one would have thought you were a pit bull prepared to rip them to shreds. 

It was your delicate legs that gave out on you, those delicate legs that made you prance like a dancer rather than walk like a dog. You could leap to the ceiling after a balloon as graceful as a ballerina. Everyone always thought it was funny how you chased balloons to pop them during birthdays. Only you did not think it was funny. I will never know what you had against balloons but by the glare of intense hatred in your eyes I know you believed them to be the ultimate evil.

I know now that you were my angel sent to console me and bring joy to my heart again. It was your mission in life to stop me from crying or at least you seemed to think it was your mission. I could never hide my tears from you. You always knew, no matter how silent I was trying to be. You would whine and carry on, paw me and crawl into my lap, and rub your beautiful head against me until I stopped. Sometimes though I just needed to cry and I would lock you out of my room, but you would stand on the other side, scratching at the door and barking. You were a pain in the ass sometimes. Even towards the end you tried to stop my tears. Like the night when I was lying in bed reading with you on the floor beside the bed where you liked to sleep after you became ill. You jumped to your feet like you were startled, and then fell over on your side and laid still. I knew our time together was coming to an end so I did not get excited. I just sat on the floor with you talking quietly and petting you, expecting every breath to be your last. I dont know how long I sat there with you. Maybe an hour before I finally began to cry. Only then did you struggle up on your feet to console me.

But finally my tears can not rouse you. You are not here to stop me from crying, and the tears are endless, my friend.