My grandparent's are two wonderful people. My grandad is an elderly doctor, who has wonderful stories of his many years driving around the wilds of Donegal, tending patients and looking after families that lived in very rural areas. He would tell of the interesting families, the characters he would meet and generally paint a picture of a people who made a living on some of the most difficult land in Ireland, against some of the most depressing weather, and always had a smile for a friendly face. He is a tall man, much taller than me. Age has bent him over, but in my mind, he is the proud gentleman doctor I knew from my childhood. He is a proud man. But in him, pride does not seem out of place. My childhood is peppered with times spent in his living room, listening to him talk. Or seeing him sneak a sweet, for he loves sweets. Yet, even in his sneaking of a sweet, he did so with an degree of poise that I could not imagine in anyone else. When he spoke, his voice demanded respect and yet soothed too. I won't claim that he is without flaw, for without a doubt, he is a flawed man. But now is not the time to dwell on them. He is a great man, a man I respect, love, and admire and a man I will miss.
My grandmother is a most wonderful woman. She is always welcoming, to a fault, if that is possible. She too is trained as a doctor, from the same university that I received my degree. In traditional fashion, she stayed at home and raised their family. That might seem as if I am selling her short, but to know her family is to know that she not only did a fine job, but that she was a fine mother. She is the finest partner than my grandfather could have. I have many fond memories of times spent in her company. She always had a story to tell, and it was never mean spirited gossip, but always a good humoured tale of life. She is a lady, truly gentle, kind and loving, but also fair and by no means, a pushover. Age too has taken a little of the wind out of her sails, but she is and always has been, one of the strongest, finest, people I know. I will miss her so too.
Finally, I come to an honorary member of my family, Lucie. Lucie was our dog, a west highland terrier. She was a puppy when we took her home and she change and enriched our lives from that day forward. I was still in secondary school then and she was such a lovely dog. She was very tolerant, very loving and incredibly empathic. I'd come home from school and she'd sense my mood and either come tearing down the stairs to say hello with a level of exuberance that warmed my heart and made me happy to be home, or else just leave me be, to get through my mood and be ready to be loved. She was a friend who knew when to be there and when to give you the space you needed and did so without a word and with incredible precision.
I remember one time, I was sitting exams and I was glad that the days exams were over. I came home, threw my bag off my shoulder and slumped into a chair. Well, that day, she had been a little slow out of the starting blocks, but she came flying down the stairs, into the sitting room and jumped up, and sailed right over the chair I was sitting on. Then after she gathered herself, she jumped up on my lap, tail still wagging, saying hello in a way that made me feel loved and happy with life.
As is not unusual for dogs, she also had a fear of loud noises. As is seemingly customary for Ireland at this time of year (the weeks coming up to Halloween), people will set off fireworks at fairly random times. This would leave Lucie shaking in a corner and there is little we could do. But, not just fireworks set her off, any loud noise could turn her legs to jelly and leave her shaking for a few minutes. MS, my brother, has a race car and the very first time he started it up, she darted under a table and pushed herself into a corner, against the wall. Nothing we would do would calm her down. As time went by, she started using under my bed as her refuge of choice. Even in times when she wasn't scared, but just didn't want to go out, or such. For such a hardy breed, she hated the rain and the cold. She loved to be warm, lying on a beanbag with people around.
There were so many good times, so many moments of happiness and fun. She was so incredibly gentle (okay, except when taking food from your hand) and so easy to live with.
Lucie had problems though. She was a thoroughbred and if it was on the list of illnesses that westies suffer from, she got it. Bad skin, arthritis, and so on. We did what we could to medicate and care for her, but we knew that in the end, her life was just going to become day after day of pain. We could not wish that on anyone, let alone our special friend, our companion, our dog. When it was clear that what she had was not going to get better, and that if we let it go any further she would be in constant discomfort, we took her one last time to see the vet. She seemed relaxed that day. Almost happy. But, it was so hard to see her as she struggled to breathe properly. And we held her as she took her final breath. The life drained from her and we had lost a truly special friend. It still brings tears to my eyes to think of it. We have lost so much, but she gave us so many good time and left so many memories. She was truly a good dog.
The story of Lucie is never complete without saying something about Tammy. She's our other dog. We got her a couple of years after we got Lucie. She was a "rescue" dog that Mam (how we refer to my mother) and HS (my sister) picked out from the local pound. She had lived a hard life before we got her. This was obvious by how very scared she was of men. It took a long time for her to relax and trust the men in my family. At first, she used to lose bladder control whenever a man would approach her. Then it only happened when it was a strange man, and she has reached a comfortable stage where she is still wary of strangers, but generally friendly. She is happy to be around small numbers of people, but is much more likely to go to her safe place than to just stay a long time with a gathering of people. Of course, she has been just as much a part of our life as Lucie was.
Anyway, the reason for all the above is to give you a picture of the friend to whom I have to say my last goodbye. You see, Lucie really loved certain places. But one of those places is a beach on the Atlantic coast of Ireland called Killahoey. It's a beautiful beach in Donegal, with soft golden sands, rolling dunes, and stunning scenery. It was a special place for her, and we feel that it is the right place to scatter her remains.
Killahoey will be around for a long time, hopefully longer than me, and while I might only get to go there once every few years, I shall always keep Lucie in mind when I do and say hello to a dear lost friend when I visit that most beautiful of beaches.
Anyway, time has come for me to say goodbye for now. For those of you with pets, please give them a loving hug and let them know how much they mean to you, for in the end, they have only one life to lead, and they do give you the best of it.
Regards,
Neil
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