The day that Shark and Meghan “graduated,” I was a wreck. Even LaShonda, whose dog, Mimi, had graduated the day before, was beginning to lose patience with me. On that day, I’d handed her a coveted roll of toilet paper to stanch her tears, but the next day, she’d gotten word that a new puppy was coming her way, so she had something to look forward to, and her tolerance of my weepiness was growing thin. “Come on, girl. Be proud. You and me been together now a long time and this is the first time I seen you cry.”
“First time I’ve wanted to.”
LaShonda leaned down to get in my face. “Be freakin’ proud of what you’ve done. This is a good thing. Don’t make what’s her name, Meghan, sad on this day.”
I was proud of myself, of Shark, and of Meghan. I wouldn’t spoil the day for her. “You’re right. I’ll behave.”
I got one of LaShonda’s extremely rare smiles.
As Shark and I walked into that activity room for the last time together, Meghan was there, and she looked as nervous as I felt. Then I got it. I wasn’t just saying good-bye to Shark. I was saying good-bye to the only person who actually could be called a friend, making Shark’s loss doubly grievious.
In the outside world, people lose touch all the time, but usually there is a grace period, a few years when communication is strong, then grows weaker, then is done. It wasn’t that I didn’t hear from my old high school friend Brenda Brathwaite, but the contact had devolved to a card at Christmas. Thinking of you. But she wasn’t on my approved call list.
It is said that as long as one person remembers you, you’re never entirely dead. Right then, my one person was Meghan. And she was being exuberantly licked in the face by Shark. How long before he forgot me? A day? A week? As I had so often observed, the greatest divide is between prisoner and free.
Edith Moore, impeccably dressed as always, put her hands on the handles of Meghan’s wheelchair. “Time to go, Captain.” And Meghan Custer and my first dog, Shark, left me behind. As they rolled out of the activity room on this ordinary Thursday afternoon, it was over. No grace period.