So now I know

Since summer, my life has been one oddz bodkinz after another. First it was a variety of winged things that seemed to assume that they were my new best friends and, recently, the whole angels 11:11 thing.

So now I know.

They were just trying to prepare me to lose Rocco.

Oh how it hurts to write those words. Rocco the funny looking puppy whom I did NOT want. Rocco the knucklehead that has done a variety of things to himself from chewing on his toe nails till he couldn't walk, to sliding under a fence togo play with a friend and slicing open his side, that got infected and required him wearing a t-shirt for months. His favorice was myold yellow one with the v neck. Then he got hit by a car, well ass bumped actually but it taught him to stay in the yard. And then there was the night of the endless pukes where I ran out of paper and cloth towel trying to wipe up his throw up.
The worst part of that was trying to convince Rocco that he didn't have to clean it himself.

Which all brings us to yesterday and that word.... Lumphoma.

We have a chinese vet, with a thick accent. I understand him and I half suspected what was coming. (I looked it up) but I didn't expect the prognosis of a week or two. The minute the vet looked at Rocco, he knew and the poor man just kept apologising and apologising. He brought out his vet books for me to read but I knew. If the man could have fixed the dog, he would have.

So Rocco is gong to die soon.

IT ISN'T FAIR!!!!

He's only four years old and smart as a whip. He's taught us his language and was patient with us when we were the Knuckleheads who didn't understand him. He just got to the part where he understands that he has to let the cats finish their meals before he can clean their plates. If there something edible on a tray, he ask permission to have it, by touching it with his nose and not steal it. I have never known a dog with so many facial expressions.

When he was a puppy we took him to the same vet who remarked upon the funny face that Rocco had. He looked like a clown and pretty much acted like one, till he developed a forehead and a more dog like face. Rocco had been bought by the younger son whose girlfriend pestered the hell out of him to get a puppy, and since it wasn't puppy season there wasn't much to choose from and so the goofy looking puppy was chosen.

But looks aside, Rocco only wanted to make you laugh and did some of the wackiest things. When he was a puppy and I'd babysit him in the back yard, he liked to get on my lap when I was sitting on a certain chair. the next summer came around, I was on the chair and he suddenly decided he wanted to be on my lap, the launched himself onto my lap only to fall off because he had gotten too big for laps. But the look on his face was priceless. So instead of sitting on my lap, he went to splash in his baby pool, drenching himself and everything one and thing around him.

He liked sitting in the backyard swing with me as well and it took a couple of mishaps before he realised that he needed a human sitting in the swing to hold it steady while he go on. And once on, he would sit beside me like a person, occasionaly giving me a lick as if I would forget that he was there.

He loves musical toys, especially something with the chicken dance and whenever he got new toy he's turn it on and run around the yard with the song of the moment playing and the humans laughing.

That's part of what is so sad. He has such a joy in him. A love that I have never encountered before. He greets every member of the family as if the best thing in his day is seeing us come home. He gives kisses on demand and sometimes when you don't ask. I was a mess yesterday, falling apart and sobbing and my dear big boy licked my tears away. I need him now, the keyboard is getting hard to see.

But I won't cry, at least not now, there is more to say.

Rocco, as a puppy, loved visiting my craft room. Only he took something out of the room each tiome he visited. I finally started closing my door when I went into the room because one night I spotted a trail of chunky glitter in the hallway and in the middle of the glitter, covered in the stuff was that goofy dog grinning at me like he painted the Mona Lisa. And this year, during a bad thunderstorm he actually got on my lap, while I was on my chair in the craft room and somehow managed to remain there till the storm was over. Usually Rocco stand over me, like he's a bridge, so I can rub his chest and tell him what a good boy he is. We even moved a big wooden desk under the front window where he can sit and watch the world go round and so he's always the first to see you coming home. Each of us have our own greeting. You can tell who's comeing home by the bark.It's going to be so hard coming home once he's gone.

My Rocco. My baby. My buddy. My puppy. I tell him that I don't like big dog and isn't he lucky to be a puppy. I want my puppy.

So. The angels have come to escort him home. That, if anything should announce what a good boy he's been. And these next weeks with the death sentence over his head is going to be hard fro us but Rocco, I AM GOING TO SPOIL HIM ROTYRN!

BTW we have told him that he can go whenevr he's ready and that we will, eventually, be alright. As for now... myheart is broken.