This Good Ghost-Face Girl
I’ve been crying today. First softly, earlier when I was buttering an english muffin. Then when I was on hold with the vet. But the really better-sit-down-for these spray bottle-style tears didn’t spring forth until I typed three words into the calendar on my phone. And more when added my wife and two sons as invitees to that calendar event for next Wednesday.
The words were:
Goodbye to Scouty.
And now I’m crying again as I look at them.
I never had a dog growing up. We lived in an apartment complex, and since landlords are known to oppose joy, dogs were not allowed. So it wasn’t till I was a full grown dad person before I got to live with a dog. We named Scout after young miss Louise Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird, which I was reading to our kids at the time.
I know that everybody with a dog in their family claims that theirs is the best dog. And the way that I know they are lying liars is that Scout is without question the best dog. First of all, she is a magnificent beauty — a thick brindle coat in tones from black coffee to Copper of Fox, one of her white socks in need of pulling up. All her life with us, people have stopped us on the sidewalk, have slowed to a stop in their cars to call out in excited admiration: “What kinda dog is that?” and sometimes joke about stealing her. Which, if any…
