Little Fish, Big River, Bigger City

My Birthday

So here I am, more than halfway through life. I got some great emails from people who told me not to give up. I'm trying to heed them as best I can. AxL is still on a "low note" and we barely walk through our morning. I spent the day with him, yet again, preparing for tomorrow.

New acquaintances are becoming friends as we see them on the street each day. It will be sad not to have him around tomorrow and as the hours pass, I have the feeling growing inside of me that yet again, I'll not be able to put him down.

As the day wears on, he seems to improve, yet again...as he continues to take me through the roller coaster of the week. I'm supposed to meet with friends tonight for a drink or two at Trailer Park on West 23rd. It's a white trash bar and I figured I'd pay tribute to my humble roots, an "accident child" born into near-poverty to a police officer and a cocktail waitress working in a Chinese restaurant, so many years ago. Somtimes I feel like I've come pretty far, other times, I feel like I'm just nowhere.

I end up with a callback interview unexpectedly. It goes well for an hour and a half. I have another round next week. While I still have my current job, I might make a transition at some point down the road to something with a little more "bottom line" to it. At thirty-nine, I can't dilly-dally regarding funding my retirement for another minute. Panic sets in then subsides. First things first...take care of AxL, then take care of me.

My friend Jason and his girlfriend are in town on vacation. They cheer me up with roses for AxL and a card. I also get a flowery card which is silly to look at but is filled with heartfelt and inspiring words. I meet them and a couple more people at the trash bar, have a light beer or two and then we go to The Biltmore Room - a quintiessential NY City lounge around the corner. People are dressed well and it's a strange "heaven and hell" dichotomy from Trailer Park. It's like the story of my life...the one I hope to leave behind and the one I hope to somehow reach...rags to riches...Cinderella did it, why can't I find a glass loafer and a pumpkin Mercedes?

AxL and I shared Chinese take-out earlier on. I'm going to miss him and these nights and days have been a blessing that I took the time to share them with him. Jobs are easy to come by, angels like AxL are once in a lifetime. I've got my priorities right. It's easy when I listen to my heart.

Heading to bed now. In twelve hours is our final vet appointment. I'm finally reaching "peace" with all of this, I think. Strange as that sounds. I feel like I'll be okay in the long run. There's a small part of me that just never gives up. I think it's the "blonde part." Or perhaps it's the childhood dreamer who used to sit and cry in his bedroom thinking that there must be a better life ahead, something better than being hit and thrown into a room with the door slamming behind him. It seems that life is still hitting me and still slamming doors.

But I'm out of tears now. Guess I'm getting too old to cry over disappointments. I may as well keep hoping. Somehow it feels better to hope and dream.

This morning the thought hit me that I don't really have a life worth living....but considering that around 3,000 people per month read this silly journal, I guess I have a life worth reading about. It keeps me going, it keeps me writing.

I search for a worthiness in me. I believe it's hiding. Someone told me that I have a good heart and that I bring a light to others' lives. I wonder why I always feel like I'm fumbling about in the dark, blindly searching for the doorknob that will let me out of this prison of disappointment and into the world at large. Why doesn't this supposed "light" shine for me just once?

I was told I was loved by so many people. I know that AxL loves me...so why don't I love myself? I guess to really know me is to not love me, rather than the other way around. Or so I keep finding. Once upon a time, I gave my heart away to someone. After a close inspection, they tossed it down the trash chute. I think that pretty much sums it up. I'm okay from a distance or for a short while, but I'm not worth keeping after a closer inspection. I guess I can credit myself with at least knowing it and being to admit and accept it. No sense pretending to be something great when I'm not and we all know that hell is paved with good intentions. It's who you are, not how hard you try.

So is this any way to celebrate a birthday? Not really. I've got to end on a good note. I want a "happily ever after" somewhere down the road. Patience. AxL keeps telling me to just have quiet patience.

I hit bottom all this week. And I guess what I truly found down here is that there is nowhere to go but up. And so, I pray myself to sleep and will dream hope-filled dreams because they're what seem to fill my nights. Yea, I wake up to the sad truth of my life each day. But I also wake up and keep trying. As much as I just want to give up and hide from life, I can't.

I guess this little dog taught me more than I thought. I guess I'll never know when to give up. I may not be shining now, but I eventually will. I haven't been through all this crap to give up now. I haven't been beat up by life all this time to not taste the good stuff.

Someone told me that I'm rare in that it's evident that I know how to "feel and live and love life." Yea, I gotta admit...I do love life. Even the hard parts. I'll trust that good times are sure to come if I just hang on and keep trying my best. I will likely keep screwing up, but I won't give up. I'm going to toss my past mistakes down the trash chute.

And I'm going to pull my heart out of the dumpster because it's a good heart that doesn't belong there.

Onward and upward...as always...and maybe, just maybe...I'll find happily ever after before I know it.

Fuzzy Clarity

It's been a couple days of improvement. The steroid injection seemed to help a lot. AxL has been limping less, eating a dash more but still limping overall, still not eating great...but better.

Then, this afternoon, he started giving up. His stomach problems seemed to return and his bladder regained its loss, if that makes sense. We were out for yet another short walk and he decided to just lie down for half an hour, not wanting to get up. Finally, he got up, limped along slowly then decided to lie down again and rest. We found ourselves a long block from home with his limping growing worse by the step.

His eyes seemed to take on a fuzziness as I could see his brain was somewhat foggy. He seemed to be looking for something, or someone. He kept going up to women with shoulder length brown hair. They gladly stopped and gave him soft coos and sad eyes while asking me what was wrong with him.

"He's tired," was my reply. After an initial "sniff" of her hand, he would turn his head away and look for the next person coming down the sidewalk. It was so heartbreaking to watch my lost little dog. We continued limping toward home. We clogged the sidewalk to a degree, but no one seemed to mind. We got a hundred "oh, bless his heart's" as people passed by him. He drooled a bit, he stood at doors just staring at them with his head hung low.

I kept praying, "not here...just make it home..." He made it home. I called the vet and set an appointment for Saturday morning at 11:40 on the sixth of March. It was too late to take him in tonight and tomorrow is my birthday...I cannot put my best friend to rest on my birthday. We're going to cab to Central Park and just sit as long as he wants without walking tomorrow, given that he makes it through the night. No walking, just sitting and watching life go by. Then we'll cab home.

Right now, he's pacing about and drooling some more, panting as if he's just run a marathon. I can't get him to lie down and relax. Someone said that dogs like to go to a place and hide to pass on. I'm in a 200 square foot NY loft with no place to go and hide to pass on. The bathroom and kitchen are no bigger than he is. Even so, I think he knows it's my birthday and he just wants to get through it with me one last time. It will be the last year of my 30's. It will be the last night with AxL. It will be the first of many years alone. In some ways, it just feels like the way my life is supposed to be though I wish it were the opposite. I guess at a certain point, I've just learned to accept things as they are, not as I would wish them to be.

I'm looking to throw myself into work during the day and losing myself in the lonliness of writing during the night. Solitude. It rhymes with Fortitude. It kind of sounds like Solidity, too. I'm ready to hide in the every day life of surviving, going to work, getting a paycheck, eating, sleeping, working out, existing. I'm ready to let my numbness just cover me. I'm ready to be "that guy at that desk back there." I'm ready to be another face on another day in another crowd...unseen, unheard, unnoticed, unloved.

I took a short walk today as AxL slept while I got him another can of food at the store. It's so strange how when I'm outside without him, I feel invisible. When I'm with him, I'm a magnet. Life will lose it's attraction on Saturday. People will no longer stop me to chat. I'll be a living ghost, floating along, drifting through without a sound, without touching or stirring or cheering those who go by me as AxL did. He had a gift. It's time for me to let that gift go back to heaven. Someone sent me an email today which said "you're giving him his wings back."

It made all the sense in the world when it was put like that. There was a point when I thought I knew the reason he was in my life. I've lost the point and the reason. But I've learned the lesson. Too late. It's funny, I used to think life was about what you could do going forward. For some reason, I feel like it's about regretting what I didn't do in the past. Either way, the "now" is about to become an empty vacuum of listlessness, each day full of wishful thinking and sorrowful memories of never being good enough despite trying my hardest.

A friend I'd not spoken to in eight years called last night. She cheered me up, saying that people never forget me and my good heart. She made me cry when she said that life seems to hit me so hard, so often...and I just keep on going. I'm not so sure if that's admirable or not. Perhaps it is, perhaps it's just stupidity in that I simply don't know what else to do. I'm not sure why I'm an optimist. I'm not sure why I hold out hope for a brighter tomorrow when each day seems to get me closer to darker times as the years crawl through my bones.

Sometimes I feel like the story of my life is getting more than I could ever wish for only to have it torn away. Instead of feeling like I'm lucky, I feel like life is about reaching happiness so that I can be beaten down. It's like seeing heaven through the store window as my steps walk me to hell to suffer.

It's been a fuzzy twelve months, but clarity is developing. It's like AxL's past week...the way he would go in and out of life and death. My hopes were brought up then quickly blown apart. The last two days, I thought things would turn around after all, that he'd be around a bit longer, until I was settled in, until I was further along my new road. Tonight, I see that it's just the same old theme. My hopes are meant to be cremated into ashes and tossed into the wind as they slip from my grasp and dissipate behind me.

I've one thing left now. "Time." Time ahead of me to do nothing but get by. Time ahead to fill with writing words that come out of my heart and go to the page before drifting off into the forgotten yesterdays that make up my years of dissapointment in myself, in my choices, in who I am, what I've done, what I've failed to do. I have succeeded in one thing only. I've succeeded in always managing to screw up and lose, time and again. If only life rewarded such things, Bill Gates would be envious.

Perhaps I should try to screw up instead of trying to do better. Perhaps I'm just going about life all wrong. I begin now by giving up on ever being happy, of ever being loved by someone "just because..." I give up being unconditionally loved, in spite of my "humanity" and in spite of my mistakes, as AxL loved me.

When he goes, my soul will go with him. I always said he was 99% of my charm. In retrospect, it's more like 150% now that I think about it. At least I did one thing right in this lifetime. One thing.

I gave a stinky lost dog the best life a dog ever had.

Yea, so I did everything else wrong. No big surprise, no big loss. I didn't mean to, I never wanted to. Who in their right mind wants to screw up all the time? Not me, but again, it's reality versus wishful thinking. Reality is, I always blow it. Oh well. The clock will keep ticking no matter how many times I get things wrong.

What matters is, I got an important one right.

I gave another creature a wonderful existence. That's got to be worth something, somewhere in the universe of scorecards. The game's over now. Time to rest, time to hit the locker room and retire. This heart has nothing left to give. I'm done. I'm done wishing and praying and hoping and praying and wishing some more for life to get better. I'm never going to get anything else right in this life so why try? Why bother? Life from here on out is just a big fucking zero. (please excuse the French, it's been a long week without sleep or much food).

I can do nothing from here but say, "Thank you, AxL...for giving me the chance to get it right once."

Because if you do it right, once is enough.

Love First, March Second, Third Chances, Stoicly Forth

Yesterday passed all too quickly for me. Four o'clock arrived and AxL and I set out for our last walk after spending an hour just napping on the floor while I stroked his fur and cried that he would soon be gone. We arrived at the vet, waited a few minutes and were led to a back examination room.

We sat and waited some more. Then some more. An assistant named, "Amy" came in and took notes then explained the procedure. She left. We sat. My stomach churned. Me heart reeled. Then I did what any self-respecting man would do.

I got up, went to the restroom and barfed, sick to my stomach at the thought of everything.

I returned and gave AxL a hug. The vet came in and we started talking about his last few days, his decline, he stomach, etc. The vet examined AxL as I wanted to be absolutely sure that it was his time. The vet offered a possible alternative. I took it.

I decided to do some blood tests and let AxL get a $250 steroid injection that might turn things around for him a bit in terms of his legs giving out. He's in great health aside from his recent stomach, bladder and failing legs. If that makes sense. The vet is supposed to call this morning to tell us how the bloodwork looks.

We left the vet as my eyes dried up and AxL and I limped to get Chinese Take-Out. We came home and ate fried rice. We walked a couple more times. The steroid inection didn't seem to do much in those first hours, but I remained hopeful.

Our fortune cookie read: "Failure is the mother of success." I wasn't sure how to take it other than to wonder why through all of my repeated failures, where is the success? Where is the joy and happiness? Why does life seem so brutally cruel and all too short?

AxL spent the night pacing and panting or sleeping softly next to me as I sat on the floor gently massaging his aching hips and legs and shoulders.

This morning, we got up early and went for a walk. AxL took the opportunity to pee inside, unable to hold it until the front door. We went half a block to the coffee shop. On the way home, he stopped for five minutes, refusing to walk. He barfed. My heart broke some more. He continues to limp slowly despite the steroid injection.

We got home and I fed him yet another can of the best food available. Beef in gravy. He ignored it for an hour but eventually picked it over. Now he sleeps, dreaming and kicking. I am playing it hour by hour but feel that perhaps I'm not helping him at this point as I had hoped. I think about the fact that I have to go back to work before I lose my new job. I think about leaving him alone for four or five hours at a time and what might happen while I'm gone. I couldn't take not being around if he "gave up" while I was at a desk just blocks away.

It's gray today. The sky is not blue. The sun is not shining. I fear it is truly and utterly time to just say goodbye.

I feel like at least I have tried in every form to do what I can for my best friend and family. He deserves every chance as I think we all do. Life is about second and third and fourth and fifth chances. Love is about giving someone those chances.

For Better Or Worse

How do you spend your last hours with your closest and best friend? How do you face knowing that all too soon, he won't be there to scratch behind the ears? For better or worse, this is the little story of AxL and me as we near the end of a long and wonderful road trip through life together.

First, we went for several tiny and slow walks yesterday. We got the best canned food. We bought his favorite treats which he refused to eat. We opted for turkey hot dogs all day instead as he turned up his nose at the canned food and soft jerky treats. Even the hot dogs took some time to ponder. It was heartbreakingly adorable in its own way.

We met our first neighbor, Maria, after almost two weeks of living here and not seeing a soul. She's a nice girl from Maine with a cat named Cha-Cha. Unkbeknownst to us, Cha-Cha has been racing to the door every time AxL comes through the hall with his "World's Cutest Dog" name tag jingling. Maria has a funny Maine accent that reminded us of two of our favorite employees at AxL Snaks: Seth and Ryan. They were a couple of young guys from Maine who built dog houses and stands to hold dog bowls while they worked for us on the side. Those were the days...hours spent baking away in our Seattle loft as flour dust floated in the sunbeams streaming through the windows. When there was sun.

Today is sunny outside yet my face rains away, powered by nothing more than two Krispy Kreme donuts from yesterday. I drink as much water as I can, trying to keep up with AxL's thirst in order to replenish my tears. I'm not cheap on tears these last few days. It would be a dishonor to do so.

We met neighborhood dogs yesterday and later on, we spent a half hour chatting with the girls from the Blu Sky Salon across the street while waiting for their boyfriends to come and pick them up. They cried with me as we talked about AxL, his life and his last hours. One of the girls just put down her dog of 16 years last November, the other just put down her cat. They knew what we were going through and comforted me in my painful moment. AxL slept away to regain his strength to cross the street back to our apartment. He doesn't even lift his head at the sound of his name. He's so very, very tired...yet so very brave, cheering me as much as he can even now. He knows. I know. He hurts. I hurt.

We returned to apartment 4W, I think of it as "Four Winds" and it reminds me of all the places we've been together over the last twelve years of adventure with this wonderful dog and incredibly loyal and loving friend. We watched our second favorite actress Charlize win an Oscar while we thought of our all time favorite actress who is sure to win someday soon down the road. LoLo, where ever you are, you are in our hearts now...more than ever. We will always be your boys and your biggest fans. Always. Keep that in your heart as you follow your dreams. AxL will soon be watching over your budding career and blessing you every step of the way. We will both always love you, more than you will know, keeping you in our hearts and thoughts and prayers, near or far, better or worse. You are truly the most beautfiul and wonderful person to ever touch our lives. Thank you for the incredible love and friendship and home you gave us. We thank you to the stars and back, to heaven and beyond. You will always and forever be "our princess" as no one could ever replace you in this life or in any other. You are an angel in who you are, never ever forget that. May life bring you the happiness you brought us as you follow your dreams and will surely reach every one of them. The door where AxL's leash will hang after he is gone will always be open to you (and the Peanut!) Always.

After the Oscars and two more hot dogs, we went for another walk. We left more messy marks on the sidewalk. Then, AxL's back left leg decided to pretty much give up. He limped along on three weak legs as his left foot dragged along. I gently and so lovingly helped him back inside. He laid down on the floor and I took scissors to his tail and hind fur to clean off the stench from his failing body. I brushed him quietly as tears gently rolled down my cheeks for yet another hour. Eventually, he got up to attempt to pace. He simply went two feet away to the mirror and stared into it. I think he was regarding himself. I think he was saying, "You did good, old man. You adopted an orphaned boy and taught him everything there is to know about unconditional love. He's going to be okay. He's on the right road. You can rest now."

He came back to me and laid down with a grown and a thud as I failed in catching him. I pulled my blanket over me and rolled up a sweatshirt as I left my pillows behind on my last move as a loving gift. I have learned to give everything I have for others. I thank AxL for the lesson. I have not been perfect, but I have always tried my hardest. I know that after he is gone later today that as a friend said...this is a clean slate for you, a new life. Live it right. Because of AxL, I know I will. I know that I will be better and stronger now than I have ever been. My heart has lost all its walls which used to close people out who should have been let in. Today, even though it is our last together, it is my first alone. I will not let you down my friend. I will shine. I will be patient. I will follow my dreams and...as your eyes keep telling me, I will follow my heart while carrying you in it. I promise. I will follow my heart.

I ponder death as the hour approaches all too quickly. It might sound odd, but I see this day as a chance for me to live a new life. As AxL goes, I will let him take my imperfections, my self-defeat, my self-doubt, my self-hate with him. I know life is short. I lost my parents, I lost the woman who raised me, I lost the greatest love of my life and now I am losing my best friend and family yet again. In losing everything, I am finding the one thing that is worth living for...myself. I am finding that I will look forward to living each day as it comes in the best way that I can, going about my way, making the world better in a tiny way where ever possible.

I have finally learned that I actually am someone worth loving. I would not have had AxL in my life if I weren't. I have never felt worthy, but now I am learning that I must be. I must be. I must be. I am.

We went for our morning walk. It's more of a crawl now. It takes half an hour to go ten yards. I smile as he sniffs each inch and limps with each step of the way. His back left leg is working better this morning but the top of his foot still drags accompanied by the sound of his toenails along the sidewalk. We got a coffee, we made a couple more messes...I think of them as the marks I will walk by until the next rain that will wash them away as my tears wash away the pain I endure. As I cry now, my tears are warm upon my face. It must be the love in them.

We may take a taxi to Central Park in a bit. I wasn't going to take pictures of his last days, but feel it would be better to have them to look at years down the road along with all the other places we've lived. It will never be easy to look back upon these last two weeks, but it will never be forgotten. It has been an amazing ride with ups and downs. I will continue to press on in search of more ups. I have more to give, more to be. It is our last day. Tomorrow will be a new day, surely a difficult one, but the first of many more to come for me.

I think back to the day that I got the phone call that my grandmother had passed on. It was the morning of my graduation from Georgetown. I felt a great weight lifted from my shoulders that day, knowing she was in a much better place. I pray that in a few hours this incredible weight of the world gently rises to heaven along with AxL's wonderful soul. I guess there's a movie out now called "21 Grams" that I've not seen. I think it's something about the weight of a soul and you lose 21 grams when you die. If dog years are seven times that of human years, it must mean that AxL's soul weighs 147 grams.

I think back to turning out the lights last night. I laid down on the floor and put one hand on his side as he lay sleeping next to me. I felt his heart beating...his wonderully good heart. I felt him breathe lightly, then stop...then breathe again. He woke me several times as he his feet kicked out wildly while he dreamed. "He's already dreaming of the squirrels he will soon chase," I thought.

A couple of hours later, we went out again. We returned and slept another hour or so. He woke up at sunrise to the sound of garbage trucks. He stood up and puddled upon the floor before I could even sit up myself. I didn't mind in the least. We took twenty minutes to get outside and smell the morning air. He just wanted to stand and sniff for awhile. I just wanted to stand and watch him.

I want to hang onto him another day, sleep next to him with my hand on his heart another night. I think of the date: March 1st.

I rethink of the date: March First.

After he's gone, I will have dreams to reach. To get there, I must march...first. It is a warm, wonderful and sunny day. It is a good day to say goodbye to a great dog and greater friend.

In this moment, I am calm and brave. When THE moment comes for THE dog, I hope to be the same but know I will fall apart as I have done so many times recently. But eventually, I will calmly and bravely face the world and the days ahead. I am better because of the days behind. Every moment is a chance to start over. It is a chance to do things right this time. AxL has been the only thing I've done right so far. He won't be the last.

I ramble. Without someone to hold me, I do the only thing I am good at...I write. I pour out my heart. I dream of the future. I dream of winning an Oscar for best screenplay. I will begin what I pray is a wonderful new adventure and tonight, as I sip "Three Legged Red" I have saved for this day, (a gift of wine from my incredible friend, Tom) I will type the first words of the screenplay about AxL's life and how it changed mine. It will be the story of being lost and finding more than I could ever hope for. It is the story of how one boy grew to become a man. It is the story of how he comes to shine because of an angel of a dog. It will be a story about the greatest love ever known. It is a story that will have a "movie ending."

I will write today and every day forward, following my dreams, with AxL in my heart. And my heart will always be open for love to walk in, sooner or later, for better or worse, like my door...where his leash will hang until the end of my days.

It is the promise I will keep. It is the promise I made to AxL...the greatest dog to ever find a boy.

Brave Boys

We had another rough night, each hour or so spent cleaning up the floor or limping along the sidewalk a few feet in either direction as AxL bravely fights against going away. My heart is ripped into pieces as I watch my best friend act as happy as he can. I thought that perhaps his stomach problem would be a passing twenty-four hour thing as it has been in the past, but I know that it isn't this time.

I cry while watching him give his all, trying to keep me happy. As of this morning, he walks with his back left leg out to the side while his front left leg can only take tiny six-inch steps at a time. The tops of his back feet are black as he drags them across the sidewalk since it seems the nerves in his back are pretty much lost. He hates water and he hates his feet being touched so I just let them be covered in dirt rather than put him in the tub to wash him off.

In the apartment, he paces about, not seeming to be able to lie down and just rest despite my best efforts to comfort him. Eventually, his legs are shaking so badly that he lies down and then passes out to rest peacefully for thrity or forty minutes by my side as I gently stroke his fur and comfort him with all the love and kind words that I have left.

It is time. If nothing else, I know that my struggle in terms of letting him go or hanging on for another day or so has come to its end. It is time to just let him go because his good moments are so few compared to the bad now. The time to let him go is thirty hours and nineteen minutes from now. It seems to be racing by yet part of me wishes it to just be over sooner.

I don't know how to get through this. How do you spend your last hours with your best friend of twelve years? How do you spend your last hours with your closest family? What do you do? What can you say other than "thank you and I love you so much..."

What can I do except gently stroke his fur that covers his all too skinny ribs and backbone? What can I do but let his head rest on my lap just one more time, and then another, knowing that soon...

I just can't think of it...what it's going to be like.

I gently stroke his ears. He loves that. I gently scratch his nose right between his eyes which he also loves. I run my finger nails down his back, slowly, softly, lovingly. Someone once told me recently that he loved this and after all these years, I didn't know it until awhile ago. I know it now and spend these last hours doing all I can to make them wonderful.

We talk about our adventures. The time we saw a grizzly just yards from our camp outside the Tetons, the time we broke down in the middle of nowhere and ate ice cream while the mechanic got us going again...the time he jumped through the window of a police car, right over the patrol man's arm without spilling a drip of coffee...

All those walks around Greenlake and those few wonderful walks around Folsom Lake. Our six hikes up 14,000 foot Mt. Quandary in Colorado and our trips to Sun Valley, Idaho. All those weekends at Marymoor Park selling treats and coffee while running our little business. The day we took photos for his beer biskits box, now in stores...his own little legacy that will live on after he's gone. All the fights he got into with obnoxious dogs, all the road trips and camping trips we took. I think of the hotels we snuck into. We talk about the day we adopted Venus the Peanut when she just sort of "picked us" with her little look. We miss her happy energy now. All those days at Amazon.com when he would "make his rounds" in the morning to say hello and then make them again as each "AxL friend" shared their lunch with him behind my back. All those mornings and breakfasts at the 5-Spot, Caffe Union and Perry's. All the "frosty paws" at Catnip and Bones. Our two trips at Christmas to Yosemite...and that cross-country ski adventure that ended in a blinding snow storm where we were lost but acted like we weren't until we got home nearly frozen after dark. All those times I woke up to find him on the couch, acting sheepish...and the night the TV was suddenly blaring at 3 a.m. because he was lying on his back snoring away while his nose was on the remote, turning up the volume to max.

The hikes on the beach, especially last year on my birthday in Carmel. He won't be around for my birthday this Friday, but he will be with me in my heart. There was the two times he snuck out of my apartment and took the elevator for a ride. People would call from another floor and say he came to visit for a spell. There were the times he would walk out the front door of our L.A. house and go next door to visit Helen and her cats who just sat and scowled at him as she shared her dinner. Helen passed away a few years ago and I know AxL will visit with her again soon. My tears just keep flowing until then.

There was the day we bought the "axl mobile..." our espresso truck and drove it around town for the first time while laughing. We talk about all the nights where we'd go without sleep while baking dog treats and listening to music until sunrise. Then we'd go walk along through Myrtle Edwards Park and scare the little seals off the rocks. THere was the night he went to jail for being a "dog at large" and there was the $72 ticket we got while flying a kite on a Sunday morning. He's been on TV in Japan and he was on 60 Minutes once. He's been on the five o'clock news, in countless newspapers and in magazines as far away as Costa Rica. It was in Spanish and we never bothered to translate it but it's floating around in a box called "axl's scrapbook stuff."

He's pacing and panting and his little legs are quivering and shaking again. We were just out thirty minutes ago but it seems to be time to go again, bless his heart, bless his little bladder, bless his droopy, weeping left eye and his fuzzy little feet that look like bedroom slippers. Bless his God-awful breath that could stop a train. I wish it could stop the trainwreck that I am going to be tomorrow afternoon.

We laugh about all the toys I constantly bought him that he never cared about. He was always above toys. Soon, too soon, he'll be above me...looking down and watching, guiding, nudging and blessing me. I'm trying to tell myself that he's not dying...he's just changing addresses. He'll still be around...his fur will be found clinging to clothes for years to come. It will be hard to choke back the tears as I find them and cherish them.

At least he won't have to deal with fireworks on the 4th of July. He won't have to take any more baths...he won't wipe out and knock his chin on the curb when he misses the sidewalk when crossing the street. He won't be falling down in the middle of the night with a thud and an old dog's yelp. He won't have to spit out his medicine that I try and hide in hot dogs.

Away we go. One more walk. A few more people to meet. Then we'll be back home to shed a few more tears and have a few more ear rubs.

We're getting through these last hours as best we can, as bravely as we can. The lost dog and lost boy who found each other. The brave boys who will never forget the times they shared.