In honor of The Old One Eyed Pug's birth week, I have written this in my Life After Pug state of mind and heart.
I was sitting in my bathroom the other morning...well, you know why I was sitting in there. And in walks Muddy, the giant tailed chocolate lab that really should have a crash helmet. He is such a sweet fellow and his routine is to come in and smash his tail around in the bathroom while I...well, you know.
But the other day, and each day since it seems, I can't help think of The Pug as I'm sitting in there. Because that was the Pug's job–to come into the bathroom each morning and wait for me to be...you know, finished.
So I was sitting there watching Muddy's giant tail, and it's a wonderful tail, it's a battleship, really–it can take out entire shelves and sustain no damage. But it made me think of The Old One Eyed Pug's little compact curly tail, and how much a Pug's tail is like a pig's. A pig expresses a lot in how it curls or uncurls his tail. The Pug did too, and when he uncurled it so it hung like a Lab's tail, it either meant he felt ill or was so relaxed he did not have the energy to recurl his tail. When he was that relaxed, even his one giant eyeball looked sleepy.
I miss the way he wagged his curled tail. Any Pug owner knows what I mean. It's this tiny curled masterpiece the way it moved.
The Pug died a couple weeks after my mother, last April. You know the story. I won't bring everyone down reliving it here. I often write that living is the important thing we have, versus looking backwards. But the state of Life After A Pug leaves me reminiscing a lot about his sqooshy face, his giant eyeball left behind after he lost the other one and enormous quantities of gas emanating from him while he slept unbothered.
Oh, the gas he passed. But I'd take a lap of it tonight to sit and hold him again, as his snores encouraged me to turn up the sound on the TV.
I have friends with pugs. And I have some online friends with pugs. I swoon over their pug photos. They understand that Pugness is a state of heart–One never gets 'over' Pugness. Never. There was one rather annoying "friend" on Facebook who really wasn't a friend [and is no longer a friend....you know how that goes down] and she had Pugs and after Billy died she kept posting pug photos on my Facebook wall, not weeks or months after, but days after. I didn't say anything as I assumed she meant well, but it was rather hurtful. She also told me to "get off the couch" just days after Billy died, meaning, "Go out and get another one, you know you want too." I didn't react to that either.
So, before I go further - a tip to all reading this. When someone is in Life After A Pug, do not haunt them with new Pugness! Let them wallow in their broken Pug state.If they seek more Pugness from your Pugness, then you may share Pug love with them.
I plan on having a Pug again. In fact I'd like two. But, I am committed to getting my dear mellow soul man, Huck, through his senior years. He is so sensitive and although he loved The Pug, I just feel I need to let him live his days out without a new gas maker in the house. The Dirt Farmer might just leave - he must have some limits to animal acquisitions, I must be wise. He's the best cook around among other things.
So, to my little Billy Baker, my One Eyed Pug, Pug, Oh Pug, I am thinking of you on your birth week. I miss you. I know exactly where your body lies under the lilacs, and I know exactly how I laid you to rest and which way your head faced. I can see you. My Pug.
