My dad died two years ago. It’s been hard to get over. We had a year from his can­cer diag­no­sis until he passed away, and I never wanted to admit what was hap­pen­ing and I’m only just admit­ting it now. I didn’t want to see him on his death bed in the end, because I knew that if I didn’t see it, part of me could deny it had ever hap­pened. He was 44 years old. In case you’re won­der­ing, I am 29. My par­ents were young when I was born, and I’ve always banked on that to avoid those tragedies that we all face some day. Life is strange that way. All of my friends with par­ents in their 50s and 60s still have theirs, and I’m down one already.

You focus on the happy mem­o­ries at first, but some­times, there are less pleas­ant mem­o­ries that repeat­edly rise up like angry ghosts, demand­ing to be accounted for. They spring on you in the mid­dle of the night, take grip on your mind, and refuse to let go. Lately, I can’t stop think­ing about how my father killed his dog when I was eight.

My par­ents had recently divorced. To this day, I’m not sure what the cir­cum­stances were. As part of attempt­ing to make it up to myself, my sis­ter, and my lit­tle brother, our par­ents each got a puppy. That dog that lived with my mother was Beauty. I can­not remem­ber the name of the dog that lived with my father.

The two were sis­ters, mutts, small­ish dogs, but not pun­ters like poo­dles or chi­huahuas. They were lov­ing, but hard to train. And my father’s dog liked to chew things.

I did not see him kill the dog. I am not sure how I know what hap­pened, but I can pic­ture it like I was there. My father was liv­ing in the base­ment of his old­est sister’s house on the east side of Topeka. During the day, he worked as a meter man. He wore a blue uni­form that was often mis­taken for a policeman’s uni­form with black shoes that he kept well-polished. I think he had a spe­cial affec­tion for shoes then, given that he walked miles and miles every day as part of his beat. This was before the scoot­ers meter peo­ple use now.

He came home from some­where, I imag­ine it was to buy what few gro­ceries he could afford after giv­ing most of his money to my mother to feed us, and his dog, the one whose name I can­not remem­ber, had chewed one of his work shoes to pieces and was start­ing in on the other. It was then, in a fit of anger, that he threw the remain­ing shoe at his cow­er­ing dog, strik­ing her in the head. She whim­pered, fell onto her side, and died.

I know this story. Someone told it to me, but it was not my father. He never spoke of it. I saw tears in my father’s eyes sev­eral times over my life– he was not the kind of touchy-feely mod­ern man that some fathers are, but he was not so stoic either. But I can remem­ber ask­ing my father about his dog, and see­ing him shake his head and turn away to keep me from see­ing his tears.

My mother gave Beauty to my father. Despite all the trou­ble they had, despite the fact that he had killed his own dog a week before, she gave him the dog. If he were alive, he would prob­a­bly tell me that the rea­son was that my mother couldn’t han­dle the dog, that Beauty was con­stantly mak­ing messes and she gave him the dog in frus­tra­tion. I’m not so sure about that.

A year later, she was remar­ried, and we moved in with my father. Beauty became the fam­ily dog, and at some point, I for­got the other dog. We gave Beauty away to my mother’s sis­ter when my father remar­ried and we moved from Topeka to Lawrence. She’s long dead now. She was a good dog. Gentle and for­giv­ing of children.

I wish I could remem­ber the dog’s name. I think that some small part of me should honor her like I honor my father. He wasn’t per­fect, but I know he never meant to hurt his dog.

Tagged as: cancer, dad, death, family, personal