I was so overwhelmed by raising three sons (this is not news to them!) with no mom or sister or aunt around who could barge in and say “Mary, you are about to lose your mind.  Go out, get a manicure, take a walk, we are taking care of the kids, we don’t want to see you for twelve hours.”  George of the Highlands was our first boxer.  He was so named because he was born on Highland Road in Sacramento, California and lived out his days on Highland Road in Lafayette, CA.  He was an AKC (I’m a rescue owner from now on, that’s another tale) and that was his official name on his papers.  We got him as a puppy when the boys were aged 4, 6 and 9.  What great joy he brought into our home.

The crazy mornings where I had previously been yelling at kids to get shoes on and stop screwin’ around and eat their breakfast were replaced by mornings of me saying in my “George” voice (basically a cartoon dopey doe-de-doe-doe-doe voice)  “How come you guys don’t listen to your Mom, eat your breakfast.”  The mornings in the kitchen went from walls of angry frustration to cascades of giggles almost instantly after he arrived.

George fit right in to the chaos.  My Mom says she recalls visiting and it would just be a tumble of boys and dog running around everywhere.  He loved his brothers and they loved him.  Boxers are tremendously gentle with small children.  Although, when George was still under 6 months and at the nipping stage, four year old Jeff made the grave error of coming out of the bathroom, pantless, to report a toilet issue, and as the rest of us all grasped for words quick enough – too late, George had taken a nip at that enticing little sausage that was just at his eye level.  This unfortunate incident (the culmination of a few others between our preschool son and baby doggy) caused Jeff to cry “Why did we get a dog just so he could bite me?”   Fortunately, the pack continued to come down hard on our little newcomer and his nipping did not last long.

There are many George of the Highlands stories that will probable surface over time, but for now suffice to say he was a beloved member of the family.  He went on all our vacations with us in the trailer despite his tall stature, and his good nature made us a better family.  He certainly changed my life as a frazzled mom.

Then one day the inevitable happened.  He was increasingly not himself.  It happened so fast.  New Years’ Day he was still able to walk the entire length of downtown with Al and me.   By the end of the month he was gone.  We had to put him down, as he had lymphoma.  Our choices were to treat him and hope for another four months of what would surely be just a long and sad and miserable for him goodbye, or put him to sleep and remember him as we do.  We chose the latter.

I made the appointment over the phone, in tears.  The receptionist at the vet asked if I wanted him cremated separately and to have the ashes.  I asked how much it cost – a couple of hundred.  I couldn’t make the decision, despite my previous adamant feelings that keeping a dog’s ashes was rather silly.  She said “ok, I’ll just put you down for a maybe.”   When the fateful day arrived Al, Jeff and I took George over to the vet, after several days of tears beyond tears.  I held that beautiful dog’s face in my hands as he was injected and said what I always said in a talking-to-a-baby-voice when I would snuggle his face “You are my little sweetie pie-mst, yes are armst” – and then he was gone.

A week later the vet’s office called to tell me the ashes were ready!  Holy shit!  I had completely forgotten about that, and now that the trauma was over I was back to thinking that was rather silly!  Ed the Dog had entered our life already, as we simply couldn’t bear life without a boxer in the house.  $200 for his ashes.  Are you friggin’ kidding me?  That plus whatever it cost to have him put to sleep, we’re talking about three hundred bucks for a dead dog.  At that time I truly didn’t remember agreeing to that, but slowly the appointment phone call came back into my consciousness.  The vet and I agreed to split the difference, since it hadn’t been confirmed on the day of reckoning.

I am totally grossed out by the idea of ashes on the mantle.  So I bought a rose bush – ‘Chicago Peace,’ it’s a beautiful tree rose – planted it, scattered him underneath it and placed the tile we had made by imprinting his paws and walked away.

That rose tree has produced beautiful roses.  They are fragrant, they are any combination of deep pink and light pink and cream and yellow, each one is unique in how those colors are manifested.  However, they produce about two to three each year.  I don’t know what I was doing wrong, I fertilized them, watered them, etc.  It has been pruned, at times, naturally by deer (as I write this a mama and newborn just passed by on the hillside, seriously do I live in Eden or what?)

This year, though, it has been an explosion of buds and flowers.  I don’t know what this means, perhaps that George of the Highlands has finally and completely turned into George the Rose.  Even when there were only one or two per season, though, those roses have been a great pleasure to me. Each time I bring one into the house and put it in a vase, it’s heady fragrance reminds me of the amazing physical world that just keeps recycling itself from dogs to roses to sowbugs and back to dogs again.  And for just a few moments I have my blessed George of the Highlands back in my senses.  We all agree he smells much better as a rose…