Funeral for a friend

What most people will remember is the whoopie pie story.

A whoopie pie, if you've never seen one, is the fatter, fuller cousin
of the Devil Dog: two thick circles of chocolate sponge cake surrounding a
layer of white cream. They're probably among the worst things you can put
into your body. I love them. Tootsie did, too.

My family had gathered together for dinner on the boat: my parents,
my brother, my grandmother, my mother's brother and his family. Tootsie had
been confined above deck. Throughout the meal, she paced back and forth,
sticking her snout through portholes or drooping her head over the board
placed across the gangway to prevent her from coming downstairs. She
suffered in silence during dinner, but when my mother cleared the place and
began distributing whoopie pies for dessert, Tootsie began to whine.

"Mmm-mmm," my Uncle Mike said, holding his whoopie pie in the air
and smacking his lips. "These...are...delicious."

The two of them locked eyes.

"It's too bad you can't have one, Toots," he said. "Urk!"

He said "urk" because Tootsie had, in one motion, leaped over
the board at the top of the staircase, flew down the stairs, barreled through
the galley and jumped into my Uncle Mike's lap. Tootsie was something less
than petite in those days, and when she landed on his stomach my uncle gasped.
As he did, Tootsie reached in with her tongue and swabbed the whoopie pie
right out of his mouth.

From that day forward, my dog and my uncle had a special bond.

My father will remember the time he and Tootsie drove to Hyannis to
register his boat. He'd left Tootsie in the back of his Blazer -- with the
tailgate window open, of course -- while he stood in line at the Registry of
Motor Vehicles. About twenty minutes had gone by when he heard a commotion
in the back of the building. Tootsie had somehow extracted herself from the
car, found her way through heavy traffic, walked several blocks and managed
to enter the Registry building before finding my dad in line. He's always
cited this story as an example of her intelligence. I don't disagree with
him, but for me the story shows more than anything how Tootsie couldn't stand
to let my dad out of her sight. She loved him that much.

Dave, of course, was the one who took Tootsie to Hy-Hopes Obedience
School, and so the story he remembers has to do with her final exam. Dave
and Tootsie had a list of commands they were supposed to learn together --
sit, lie down, roll over, heel, etc. -- and they'd done pretty well at most
of them. There was one command, however, that Dave had never gotten around
to teaching Tootsie. During her final examination, Tootsie watched all of
the other dogs intently as they were asked to perform their routines. When
it was her turn, she behaved flawlessly -- even executing the command she'd
never been taught. She never wanted to let us down.

I never realized, in those early years, how seriously Tootsie took
her role in our family. To me, she was and would remain a puppy: playful,
affectionate (though she would only put up with so much petting), curious,
and always, always, hungry. When she'd bang on my bedroom door with her
head until it flew open, then rush over to the bed to lick my face, climb
under the covers, or present me with a request to go outside, I thought
she was just looking for something to do. It didn't occur to me until
years later that she _had_ something to do: that every day, she made sure
each of us got up on time, ate our breakfast, had our exercise, came home
when we were supposed to come home, went to bed when we were supposed to
go to bed. Tootsie protected the house from squirrels, cats, snakes, and
hamsters, and she also kept it free from bad moods, arguments, and
loneliness -- it was impossible to stay depressed with an energetic little
bundle of brown constantly depositing half-chewed stuffed animals in your lap
and poking your pockets in search of treats.

My mother knew all this, of course, because she and Tootsie had
long conversations while the rest of us were at work, school, or some other
place where dogs were not allowed. It always amazed me, the way my mother
could interpret one of Tootsie's requests. She would whine for twenty
minutes straight (Tootsie, not my mother) and I'd try to placate her by
offering her food, taking her outside, bringing her various stuffed animals.
Eventually, my mother would walk in, and Tootsie would turn and plead her
case. "Oh," my mother would say. "You want us to open the front door
and put your bed in front of it, so that you can sleep in the sunlight."
Or, "Oh, you think it's time for us to have breakfast so that you can have
the last bite" (Tootsie was always entitled to the last bite of everything).
Or "Oh, you want us to put peanut butter on this strip of rawhide." And
she would always be right; Tootsie would settle down, look at the rest of
us as though we were well-meaning idiots, and share a sympathetic sigh with
my mother, the only representative of reason in an otherwise male household.

Tootsie brought out the best in all of us. I did not think it was
possible for my mother to be more caring, my father more patient, my brother
more compassionate than he already was, but Tootsie required all of us to be
more than we were. She made me enjoy things I'd never even considered
before: she taught me the pleasure of an early morning walk, when everyone
else is asleep, helped me to appreciate snow, knew when I needed to take
a break from my studies and chase her through the swamp, or play hide-and-seek,
or have some ice cream. She loved to explore, to go for rides, to meet new people,
to take part in conversations, to play, to listen. She would do anything -- dress up
in silly clothes, dig deep holes in the sand, hide my parents' glasses around the
house, if she thought it was what we needed (and if doing so might possibly earn
her a treat).

I'll remember the stories -- the times Tootsie escaped from her
harness, the time she ate a plastic egg full of toenails (don't ask), the
time she introduced me to a girl, the times my mother would convince her
to dress up like Rudolph or sing or say "Aloha." Those are the stories
we told as we gathered around her on Saturday, fed her cheese and watermelon,
petted her, hugged her. Those are the stories I'll be telling everyone I
know for the rest of my life.

But the stories about Tootsie that I'll remember are the ones I'll
never tell anyone, about the times when I'd been dumped, or disappointed, or
depressed, when I felt I couldn't talk to anyone, when I wasn't sure how to
go on. I don't know how she knew, but she always knew. She would come up to
me and put her head in my lap, or crawl into bed with me, and she would
listen to me for any length of time, and I knew -- I knew -- she understood,
and she never failed to make me feel better.

I like to think that she feels better, now, that she knows we know
how much she did for us, how much she cared about us, how much we love her.
I like to think that she is running again, that she is exploring, and that
soon she'll be racing back to tell us about the places she has gone, and
calling for us to follow her, the way she always did