My Two Writing Teachers colleagues and I are hosting the 16th Annual March Slice of Life Story Challenge, in which teachers from around the world participate by posting a story per day.
This year, the SOLSC gives me a chance to record memories of our little dog, Indie, who died in January. I want to write these down while they are still fresh, so that my family and I can read them later and remember not only Indie, but little slices of life across the years.
My husband, Brinton, and I lived in New York from 2002-2012, about ten years. We would make frequent trips home to Vermont, where we both had grown up. In the early years, we would fly JetBlue, which at the time was super cheap. I vaguely remember that we could get a ticket for $99 to Burlington, and a “booklet” of tickets for even less — but maybe that wasn’t true and just my memory playing tricks on me. It seems impossible that it was that cheap, but I must have gotten the idea somewhere?
When our dog, Indie, joined our family, it turned out he was too big to carry on the plane. But… by then we had an old beat up Volvo station wagon. We would pack up for a long weekend, or a school break, and head home to the mountains whenever we could.
It turned out driving home to Vermont was a lot easier than flying. Before the car, we had to either pay for a car service to pick us up and deliver us to JFK, or we had to schlepp all our baggage on multiple subways, LIRR, and then the airport shuttle to get to our terminal. Then once we got to Burlington, we had to either pay for a car service or have someone pick us up at the airport—and then do the entire journey again on the way home.
Driving, we could just hop in the car and go. No getting to the airport early, no flight delays, no shuttles, subways, or car services. Just go!
It was easy-peasy to drive. Except for one thing.
Indie.
Indie hated the car. In the beginning, he would constantly climb into the front seats to be with us. He especially would try to get into the lap of whoever was driving, making it a struggle to get anywhere with him. Eventually we discovered a doggy-seatbelt, which was basically a little strap that clicked into a seatbelt buckle, and clipped to his collar.
Amazingly, he didn’t seem to mind the doggy seatbelt. But he always, always sat backward, quietly facing the back of the seat. Eventually he didn’t seem to need the seatbelt, and would just hang out back there, facing backward, contemplating the passenger seats.
The only time he would face forward was when someone was holding him. I guess he felt safer that way. He always wanted someone to hold him. I love that he loved being held. When I was holding him in my lap, it felt like he was holding me right back. I guess I can’t blame him for not wanting to sit all by himself in the car. I didn’t really want to either.