Sandy

There was no tolling of church bells when Sandy died. There couldn’t have been even if his death plunged our family into unaccustomed grief. Sandy was a dog. A half-breed Japanese Spitz with generous spots of brown, he came to us about eight years ago, a gift from a Filipina diplomat friend. Sandy’s first name was Ludvig. We changed that to Christmas because he arrived during the Yuletide, a scared, shivering, scrawny mutt of three months who immediately sought refuge under the nearest cabinet. Dogs are like that at the beginning.

My son Marc, after a six-month sojourn in San Diego, took a liking to him and changed his name anew. This time it was Sandy and the name stuck. Sandy did not know at the time, as we didn’t, that he would bring immense joy to our lives. He would leap playfully into the air, snatch and fetch objects, roll, bark playfully, run circles in the garden as though he was chasing an invisible playmate. He would growl with genuine anger at waxen Halloween figures, snap at them, betoken himself with canine alarm when tossed into the pool. And always, always, Sandy would whine delightfully, emit squeals, playful growls, tinny barks, a gaggle of cries and moans whenever any of us arrived home from work or school.

Sandy must have been unto the manor born.

He knew when we were quarrelling. He would alternately position himself in front of each quarrelling member, look each beseechingly in the eye, as though to tenderly say "That’s enough, please, let’s be happy again," brushing a paw in the ground. He was such a dear. Once, twice, thrice, to test his loyalty, I would scream at Marc, threaten to punch him in the face. Sandy would instantly position himself in the middle, look at me, his eyes virtually saying: "Boss, take it easy, please don’t hurt Marc." When I pretended to persist, he jumped on Marc full body to protect him, but his eyes never turned hostile. And when I put out my hand to him, Sandy would lick it ever so affectionately. He was that kind of a dog.

His love and loyalty were unconditional. He was there to protect each of us from physical harm. He was lonely when we were lonely, an unselfish friend to all of us. He could easily divine the atmosphere, yip and squeal when we all laughed, curl into a corner with wisdom whenever he felt we were all tired, and needed silence and surcease.

Sandy had excellent table and toilet manners. He never bestrode your knees during meals to ask for food. One half of Sandy knelt, the other half was upright, thankful if you tossed him a morsel of meat or chicken, unmoving if you didn’t. He had his own meals of course but he always preferred to be around mealtime. He was listening perhaps to our conversation, keening to our moods, his ears, perking or not perking or half-perking or just flap down, indicative of how he felt at any given moment. If Sandy could only talk. Oh, by God, if he could have talked!

Funny, but Sandy was not afraid of firecrackers or fireworks or minibombs exploding during the New Year. This is very unlike other dogs. They panic. They crawl into any kind of interior or cubicle, and there cower till dawn comes and the explosions start to die down. The din during New Year envelops dogs with a nameless fear. Not Sandy. The explosions bothered him not at all. He was like infantry dog prancing through a smoking battlefield.

And that was our life with Sandy until about six, seven months ago.

You only miss the sunset when it’s not there. Or the ballads of Frank Sinatra when you have not heard them for a long, long time. Or the sounds of the sea when you have deserted the beaches and shores to live uptown. And then there is an aching need to go down again. Not that we started to miss Sandy. He was always there, his white full shag of a tail jolting and wagging into instant recognition and sheer affection whenever we hove into view.

But six months ago, we started noticing a small, hardly perceptible flag in his enthusiasm. Was the sun beginning to exclude the earth? Or was the earth’s orbit a second too late? I suppose we were imagining things. Sandy was just tired perhaps, like all human beings depressed perhaps. After all he lived an abnormal life, deprived of a mate, the opportunity of being a father. He had his moonings and his courtings before when he was allowed out and, I suppose, copulated with every available female in the neighborhood. Sandy was handsome and strapping. He deserved only the best when mating time came. Why not?

But time came when Sandy had to be cooped up within the residence. And besides, this was not what caused his glow to dwindle a little, his lust for life to glimmer just a little. Brought twice at that time to the veterinarian, Sandy was found to suffer from heart worms. Heart worms? They say dogs normally get afflicted with heart worms when they vagabond outside the house too much, get into dirty grass or dirty surroundings. But Sandy was virtually a house pet, and seldom was allowed out.

Why were the white caps of joy, Sandy’s joy of course, no longer tossing torrentially into the air as in a merry madcap sea? He was that kind of a dog. His joy would often know no bounds. He would streak in and outside the house, in the garden. If he was a white stallion, Sandy would be frolicking in the plains, rearing up vertically, going down, neighing with absolute gusto, a streak of silver against the horizon, hooves in wild, rhythmic gallop. I often thought of Sandy as a horse. He was that majestic.

But now Sandy was coughing, sometimes vomitting. He was also wheezing as though he had asthma. The once proud arch of his body shrank into a stoop. The once eager, energetic eyes now drooped, fugitive with intense pain. He was taking all sorts of medication, so we were confident he would recuperate, be cured. Sandy responded for a time. The bark returned. The slow, slovenly, pathetic walk disappeared. At times, Sandy could run in brief spurts. Ah, as the poet said, oh for the sound of a voice that has vanished, and the touch of a hand that has gone. Sandy was there, voice and all four paws, a little glow back in his eyes. Where before he just refused to eat, now he was eating again. With the return of his appetite, Sandy would shortly come out from the cold, bring his act back.

He would bring his animal poetry back to the family abode.

He would enter the living room from the kitchen like a knight on a prance. He would ascend and descend the stairs like a swift shuffle of a sled in an act of presentation and heraldry and take his vows. In short, Sandy would be Sandy again. The ugly conspiracy of disease would disappear and be heard from no more. I imagine a lot of course. But you imagine a lot when somebody you cherish dies. Even if he is a dog. And we did cherish Sandy a lot. And still do.

The recuperative period did not last long. Soon, most everything got out of whack. One day, Sandy spat out blood. He was immediately brought to the veterinary clinic, there confined for four days. There was hope again. Was there really? When I looked long and lingeringly at Sandy’s eyes, whatever remained of that hope was agonizingly being scraped out. His eyes were those of the Jews in Dachau, glassy, distant, bereft of hope, awaiting their turn at the gas chamber. There was a black smudge on his face, medicine, I suppose, to ease the internal pain close to his eyes.

I looked at my dog, our dog, with a stabbing throb inside me, realizing perhaps, afraid perhaps, had not long to live.

A long, wracking, intermittent cough convulsed Sandy’s body. I just didn’t now what to do. Marc brought him back to the vet. And then he called by phone. He was almost incoherent. He asked me for advice. Advice? Who was I to give advice? Then it dawned on me that he was asking me for advice because the clinic’s veterinarian was at his wits’ end. Sandy, it came out, had a huge tumor in his head close to his brain. To risk an operation that close was to risk Sandy’s death.

Slowly, gradually, the pit of my stomach sinking, I found myself saying the following words: "Tell the doctor to put Sandy to sleep."

And so Sandy was put to sleep. And so Marc returned home, his face beet red and convulsed in tears. He had loved Sandy much too much. They were like brothers. And so Sandy’s remains were brought home to be buried at the back of the garden, where he tarried often, as though at a pilgrim’s grotto. And so Sandy was buried below a mound where today a little cross continues to stick out.

What is it about dogs, about Sandy, where the wheel comes full round at the time of death, and it falls on you like a mountain stone? What was it about our dog that made him irreplaceable? Sandy was always there to protect us against our enemies, house trespassers. If we were the first to go, Sandy would be there at our graves lying on its cold ground, true in life, true in death, truer against life’s leaden sky. Sandy looked to us like nobility. We were kings and queens in his presence. He cheered us up when we are cheerless. He was there, always there for us. Sandy couldn’t have been anywhere.

No wonder, we miss him oh so much. (e-mail reactions to [email protected]).