This story is from many years ago and had been posted to my Stories
Page; but I neglected to include a link that would make it easier to find. I’m posting it again after reading that so many
of my friends have recently had to part with a loved four-legged member of
their family.
I read where Mover Mike’s dog Amber had died the other day,
and he had written a poem while involved in his loss. We had a dog named Thurbie a while
back. You may be familiar with the works
of James Thurber. He was almost blind
and did his work up close, very close.
He drew a picture of a dog, well almost a dog; that was our
Thurbie.
Thurbie was mostly black, low to the ground and he might have had four legs; we were never sure about that. Thurbie looked more like a black rug that moved around and so we just assumed that he had legs. We had him for several years, his having shown up like most of the others, after finding the hobo’s “X” on our front door. We never really knew how old he was, middle aged puppy or there about. When he died, he took our hearts away with him. Lucy took him to the vet and he never made it back home. I went to the local garden store, it being spring, and wanted to buy a dogwood tree to plant in the yard. I spotted what I thought was a dogwood tree and asked the nurseryman about it.
“Oh, that’s not a dogwood tree at all. It’s actually a variation of the red bud, only with white flowers. Some folks call it a “False Dogwood” because it looks so much like one.”
“That’s perfect then, I’m planting it to honor a false dog” how much better could it be. So, I planted the Thurbie tree in the front yard and each year about this time it comes into bloom, beautiful white flowers that last about a week or so and then blow off to who knows where. The tree has never flourished much, remaining kind of low to the ground, more like a bush than a tree. I suppose it’s only right since Thurbie was kind of low to the ground too.
That tree died and was replaced with an Oak tree that has done much better.
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