“Sissors” has passed away 
Bob Dylan wrote a great song, “You gotta serve somebody”, if anyone was ever served it was “Lucia Mariscal Vergara”, a big name for a small Maltese dog that passed away last night at the age of “near twenty” in Harry’s hands. Just like she came in, that’s how she went out in the hands of the one that loved her and put up with her sh*t for almost twenty years. Happily, of course. If you have the heart of a pet owner you know.
She was three pounds of living hell and jealousy. She was born in Mexico and was what the Mexicans call “celosa”, jealous. Jealous of just about every other animal that walked including a sad incident with her own brother we don’t like to talk about. Earning her the nickname, “Sissors”. Thank goodness we were on foreign soil when that happened. Like marriages, whatever doesn’t happen in Texas, probably didn’t happen at all.
Lucy had her own clothes, her own glamorous bed, toys, sweaters, and whatever else she wanted. In her old age what she didn’t have was teeth. She had had them taken out in Austin for an amount of money that I figured could have bought an entire litter of Maltese puppies from a Dog Show.
About eight years ago, thinking Lucy would pass on at any time, I bought Violet, which is a Latin word for “waiting to get your stuff, Bitch”. Violet has seen Lucy munch down iddy biddy special meals of savory, homemade chicken and vegetables along with all manner of seeds for her entire lifetime. She always knew she had whatever Lucy left on her plate and life looked pretty good to Violet if you were Lucy. Lucy had a vicious streak and was, of course, jealous of Violet, making her life to the very least, restricted.
Violet lost every fight with Lucy. She is much more the “B” personality and when Sissors would go ballistic Violet would just look at me and roll her big brown eyes.
Lucia Mariscal Vergara’s funeral was preplanned and she will lie in the beautiful garden of the “lady in the pink house” where she loved to go when life was good and the sun was warm on her three pounds. She is going out shrouded in a pro marijuanna legalization t shirt and touted an occasional smoke as her cure for arthritis and long life.
As I write this tribute to a life and a love and a bit of my heart in the freezer, Violet, has taken over the antique Princess bed from New Orleans, fit for a dog that only a silver bullet could kill until last night. She is looking at me now with an upward eye roll, just a crescent moon of white by her nose, I can tell what she’s thinking.
“A deal is a deal”
Harry
Violet, long life, love and iddy biddy pieces of chicken when you get old.
If you have love in your heart don’t kill that love, go get another beautiful pet and just pass that love right on, don’t let your love just die. Give it that “period of mourning” if you must but as long as you have life, have another story with them. Know that you had the best relationship all the way to the end, then, do it again. Don’t let the pain of the passing kill that love in you and stop the outpouring of goodness and giving and the humility of picking up dog sh*t, of cleaning after something.
Lose yourself in service to something that knows how to take that love and give it back.
I am sorry for your loss B.