Saying Goodbye to the Perfect Child
By: Dave Smurthwaite
Tags: Pets, Travel, Death, Family, Love

Saying Goodbye to the Perfect Child

Our eldest & furriest is dying 8,000 miles from where our life began

Our eldest child, Benny, in the Beaujolais

I still remember the day she brought him home.

I was on a work trip to Mexico when I got the call. My wife’s excitement shook the line as she shared the biggest news our young family had yet to experience.

“I’ve got him! I’ve got him and he’s home and he’s absolutely perfect!”

As a bit of background, my wife had been patiently waiting for over 20 years for this moment. Even though I told her we needed to wait until we graduated from school, I knew before boarding the plane to Mexico that this call would be coming.

She simply couldn’t wait any longer.

“So… what does he look like?”

“Well,” she paused, trying to figure out the best way to describe him. “He’s longer than he is tall and his head is too big for his body. He’s got short stumpy legs and his feet stick out sideways like a ballerina. He’s basically the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”

He didn’t sound like the cutest thing. He sounded more like a misdrawn cartoon character or Falcor from The Neverending Story.

“He kind of looks like a cartoon dog,” my wife added as if she could hear my thoughts. “But he’s so cute! You’re going to absolutely love him! He’s perfect!”

“Did you already name him?”

“Benny,” she responded with an air of finality.

“Benny?” I questioned. “Like, Benny and the Jets, Benny?”

“His shelter name was Ben, but that was too serious a name, so now he’s Benny.”

“Sounds like perfect reasoning,” I seconded, knowing that I had no vote whatsoever in the matter. This was not our dog as much as it was her dog and she wasn’t ever planning to let him go.

Ten minutes later, he was already a missing puppy.

Benny the Stumpy Escape Artist

As a young pup, Benny loved to get out of the house for a rousing one-sided game of hide n’ seek.

Originally, as young parents, we would rush out the door and chase him all over the neighborhood trying to coax him back into our loving arms.

Eventually, however, we wised up to his game started ignoring his mischievous behavior. Our hope was that, by removing ourselves from the game, he’d eventually bore and just wander back home.

Occasionally it worked. More often, Benny just went in search of new playmates.

One fall morning, my wife received a call from an unknown number.

“Hello… are you Benny’s owner?” the kind voice on the line inquired.

If we had been fined every time someone called us with that question, we would have been in the puppy poor house. At the very least, we should have been under investigation by puppy protective services.

“Yes, I’m sorry,” my wife offered the usual apology. “Where is he now?”

“He’s on the tram,” the woman answered matter-of-factly.

“The tram?” my wife repeated, assuming she’d just misheard that our dog was in the middle of a morning commute.

“Yeah, it was the oddest thing,” the woman went on. “I was sitting at the stop when this little dog came walking up to the ramp. He just sat and waited for the tram to arrive. As soon as the tram pulled up and the doors opened, he just trotted inside. I assumed he must be with someone.”

All those hours spent gazing out our front room window and we had innocently assumed Benny was just looking for another cat to terrorize.

Instead, he had been casing the university tram stop across the street.

Benny the Bowlegged Child Therapist

Eventually, Benny ended up with four younger siblings, all of whom started out as nearly hairless lumps in swinging chairs.

The lumps, however, quickly transformed into troublesome toddlers. They would crawl around on all fours (a perfectly respectable way to get around) and terrorize anything one foot or less from the ground. Unfortunately, Benny was the most amusing of the less-than-one-foot objects in the house. He moved, he licked, and he had handfuls of hair to grab… what was not to love?

Benny patiently withstood it all and, soon enough, the four-legged monsters were up on two feet and wanting to play tag, fetch, and anything else they could think of together with their older pet brother.

They were happy-go-lucky kids with an excitable puppy, but one morning, in the span of 120 seconds, everything changed.

“We need to talk,” we called them together on the couch, our puffy and bloodshot eyes a telltale sign that something had gone terribly wrong.

“Grandma was hit and killed by a truck last night while crossing the street,” we told our four little boys, our voices cracking and fresh tears streaming over our blotchy cheeks.

“Noooo!” One of our boys wailed while another broke loose from our embrace and sprinted to his bedroom.

Our eldest rushed to Benny’s bed, hugged him tightly, and has never let go.

Benny the Four-Legged Saint

Waking up at 5:00, I can hear the tip-tap of Benny’s claws on the tile floor of our home in Rwanda, Africa.

He’s up again, pacing and unable to sleep. I can tell he’s uncomfortable; I can see in his greying eyes that he’s quickly fading.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined he would live almost 17 years; that his games of hide and seek would extend beyond a morning downtown commute to now three, almost four continents.

Through it all, he has been the most patient of oldest siblings. Never once has he nipped at his younger two-legged lumps, now thankfully old enough to feed him anything he wants from the dinner table.

Anytime life gets difficult for our kids, (which is often since they’ve been forced to live abroad by their evil parents) they simply find a spot on Benny’s bed, curl up next to him, and soon enough life is manageable once more.

He will forever be our first and he is, without a doubt, everything my wife dreamed of for over 20 years and more.

Looking at his body, now worn ragged by old age, I still smile at his odd-shaped frame, his oversized head, and his stumpy out-turned feet.

Even if I know that we’ll soon have to say goodbye, for now, I’ll hold tight to the words of my wife the day she brought him into our family

“I’ve got him! I’ve got him and he’s home and he’s absolutely perfect!”

Here’s my free guide to having a traveler’s mindset even when you’re at home