Life without Murphy hasn’t been very much fun.
“Wait a second,” you might be wondering. “Life without Murphy? Where did he go?”
The Surgery
We dropped him off at the specialist’s office early Wednesday morning for his paw surgery. Luckily Wayne was able to come with. Turns out we needed each other. It was surprising how much we both broke down once the vet tech came and escorted Murphy away.
I think I’d always get nervous if any of my pets had to go into surgery, but I think I get especially nervous because my beloved Mackie died after what should have been a standard lumpectomy. So I’m well aware that even the most standard procedures can go drastically wrong.
The Big Fret
Wayne and I both tried to proceed as normally as we could on Wednesday. He went to work. I returned home to work.
But it was hard to concentrate. My boy, my number one helper, wasn’t there waiting in the window for me to arrive like he always does. That was my first taste of life without Murphy. A glimmer of the inevitable reality that will one day come in a more permanent fashion.
Wayne called every hour to see if I’d heard anything yet. When we had no word by four, he did a three-way call to the specialist’s office. Murph was out of surgery and doing fine!
Relief!
An Out of Whack Routine
But all day my routine was off. Not just because I was missing Murph and fretting about how he was doing, but because I couldn’t shake the notion that one of these days this will be my life.
There won’t be a Murphy forcing me to take a noon break to check mail, water plants, and laugh at him sunbaking on the lawn or chasing bumbles.
When a stray sock falls out of the dirty (or clean) clothes basket, Murph the sock snatcher won’t be there to steal it and taunt me to chase him.
The windows will stay clean because he won’t be leaving his slobbery dog nose marks all over them.
Speaking of windows…there will be no Murphy face watching me back out of the driveway when I go to run errands. No Murphy face to wave goodbye to and blow kisses at like I always do as I pull away. And there won’t be a Murphy wiggle butt greeting me with that wildly deadly wagging tail of his when I return home.
Who’s going to make sure I don’t sleep the day away if I don’t have my waker upper to get my lazy bum out of bed? (Certainly not those cats, who are most content when I do sleep in and we all snuggle together in the big bed.)
And then there’s the nighttime routine. The fun part is the goodnight kisses. The not so fun part is the walks.
Sometimes it’s a drag to make sure we’re always home to walk and feed Murph by a certain time. We’re limited in our spontaneity. And there are times, like when I’ve been sick this week or in the dead of winter when it’s freezing cold outside, that come nine or ten all I want to do is fall into bed. The last thing I want to do is trudge back outside.
But I do it. We do it, Wayne and I both, because, as Wayne so aptly observed, it’s a labor of love.
Even though I don’t mean to, I guess I sometimes take my little velvet ears, golden paws, angel butt for granted. These past couple of days have made me see the error of my ways. Luckily I get the chance to remedy it.