Dearest Gehrig and Eliana,
Greetings, my sweethearts,
from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean . Granny and I are on the last segment of the
World Cruise 2008 aboard the SS Voyager from Athens ,
Greece to Ft. Lauderdale , Florida
One of the things which has
struck me on this trip is all the stories these people have about their lives
and what fills their time when they are not traveling or on cruise ships. Many of them talk of their children and
grandchildren and even great grandchildren (many are older than your Granny and
I) and they also talk about their pets and how much they miss them and love them.
When I was six years old, I
lived in Darien , CT
in a wooded little residential area on a street called Clock Avenue Dickinson Post Road New England
salt box house we lived in was on a corner and had an extra lot next to
it. I thought at the time that it was a
mansion with an exciting, vast expanse of wilderness to play in. It was that year, 1951, my parents decided to
buy me a dog for my birthday. It was a
puppy Saint Bernard and was the cutest thing.
He was not only cute but small enough for me to hold in my little arms.
I named him Jigger, for reasons that now escape me, but I loved that dog from
the first moment I saw him.
The first night we had him
home I made a little bed for him in the kitchen. I put a pan of water by it and put him down
for the night when I went to bed. The
kitchen had a swinging door preventing Jigger from getting out in the house.
All was well until about 2:00 AM
when I was awakened in my upstairs bedroom by Jigger, who was whining and
yelping in the kitchen. I got up, went
down to the kitchen and turned on the light.
There he was, huddled in his bed, whimpering and frightened. I picked him up and held him for a while,
petting him and talking to him. I told
Jigger that everything was going to be alright, calming him and comforting
him. He settled down and I put him back
in his bed, turning out the light and going back upstairs.
No sooner had I crawled back
into bed when the whimpering and yelping started again. I got back up and went back down to the
kitchen. There he was again, cowering in
his corner, with long, high pitched whines.
Again, I comforted him and told him he must stop whining and yelping or
he would wake up mom and dad and they wouldn’t be happy. Again he calmed down and I left thinking to
my self how well I handled the situation.
Not back in my warm bed five minutes and almost back to sleep when the
racket from the kitchen began anew. Now
my patience was wearing thin.
I returned to the kitchen and
picked up a newspaper my dad had left on the table. I rolled it up and brandished it before
Jigger, threatening him with a swat if he didn’t keep quiet. I mean, that tactic used to work on me when
my mom had had enough of us kids driving her nuts. But it only made Jigger whine louder. I walked over to his bed and raised the
newspaper up over my head fully prepared to deliver the blow which I was confident
would teach him not to misbehave. Then I
looked down into those big, moist brown eyes and saw the frightened look on his
face. I instantly remembered all the
times I lay in the dark of my bedroom, fearful of the night’s shadows and
noises and feeling like whining myself.
My heart melted. I dropped the
paper and knelt down, picking the trembling puppy up in my arms and hugging
him, and telling him through tears I understood.
The next morning, my mom
found me curled up next to Jigger’s bed in the kitchen, my arms wrapped around
him and both of us fast asleep. After
that he slept in my bedroom until he was about nine months old and was twice as
big as I was. We were inseparable and
played all day long out in my private wilderness. He used to watch me swinging for hours in the
rope swing, tied between two huge oak trees in our side yard, his head cocked
curiously to one side.
That first winter, he would
go out with me to play in the snow and would come in with huge clumps of snow
tangled into his thick black and white fur.
It would take mom and me nearly an hour to comb him up and then usually,
we were back out again for another romp in our white wonderland. Then in the late summer I was in the house
for a drink of water and heard the sound of screeching tires. Jigger had
apparently run out into the street for some unknown reason and a car ran over
him.
I remember standing over his
lifeless body by the side of the road, tears streaming down my face, and
begging my mom to fix him…to make him well.
It was the first time I remember seeing anything dead; especially someone
or something I loved. Mom took this
moment to explain death to me. We prayed over Jigger and asked God to take him
to “doggy heaven” and then the animal people came and took him away. I will always remember not only the love I
had for Jigger but the love I felt in return, which brings me to my next pearl.
Eighteenth Pearl
Two days ago was April 22, 2008 . It was the anniversary of a very sad occasion
for me as it was the day, 39 years earlier, that my father, your great
grandfather, Byrom Judson Smith, Jr., passed away at the very same age I am
today, 62. Now I am not trying to equate
the loss of a pet dog to the loss of a father.
Of course they are vastly different.
But those two events were similar in many ways. Both Jigger and my father died too early and
the significance of that has always been in the back of my mind. Both Jigger and my father left behind people
that mourned their loss, missing them to this day and loving them dearly. But even though death separated me from my
beloved pet and my only father, the love I have for them still lives on in my
heart and in my mind and in my spirit.
We are united by that love and are inseparable, even in death.
My prayer for both of you is
that you never have to be separated from someone you love too soon but that you
will always remember, even death cannot pull apart the bonds of love which eternally
bind us together.
Granny and I are looking
forward to your visit in June for Aunt Brittany Camp PK
Love you, bunches and
bunches,
Grandpa Jud xoxoxo
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