Adios Boss

My arms throb as I hold my two year old over the toilet to vomit for what seems like the 14th time in a day. He is sick. He has never been this sick. I am beyond exhausted. Just as he finishes emptying his little stomach, I hear the latch of the front door open and then click shut. Relief, I think to myself. I peer around the corner of the bathroom door to see my big, burly husband in his familiar black, leather jacket. His unusually happy demeanor is a site for sore eyes. Dragging my weary feet down the stairs, ready to collapse in his arms, I stop dead in my tracks. A ball of fluff emerges from his coat pocket. My two-year-old smiles and perks up for the first time in a week. I fall into a heap on the floor in a mess of tears.

Mindy, meet Boss.
Boss, meet Mindy.

Boss and I got off to a rough start. Of course he was adorable, but I was not ready for a dog. I tried to explain this to the groomer the first time I took him in after he had acquired some gnarly dreadlocks.

"He was brought into my home against my will. I just don't have time to brush him."

She stared at me in disapproval and returned him later that day, shaved down until he looked like an overgrown rat.

My husband assured me, "He'll be my shop dog and come down to work with me every day."

I can count how many days Boss worked as a "shop dog" on my right hand.

Inevitably, Boss really became my dog as I potty trained him, fed him, took him out to do his business multiple times a day, and snuggled him every day for the last five years. I've come to learn that whether human or animal, when you serve a living being that long and that diligently, you come to love it so deeply. And by golly, that dog loved me back even more fervently, as cranky and begrudging as I often was.

Tonight, while we were putting the boys to bed, the wind was blowing so fiercely outside. It blew the front door wide open, and Boss took off on an adventure. He didn't get past the second house up the street when he was hit by a car. And just like that, he's gone from our lives.

So tonight, as my husband carried Boss' fluffy little body through the door in his big, burly arms, I found myself right where I was the first day he brought him home: a heap on the floor in a mess of tears.