Denver Seminary

Engage Magazine Spring 2019

Issue link: http://denverseminary.uberflip.com/i/1095763

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 19 of 23

20 SPRING 2019 CULTURE THE LAST TIME I CRIED WAS WHEN PATIENCE DIED—MY CAROLINA DOG, MY FIRST BABY, MY CLOSE FRIEND. WE GOT HER IN 2002. FOR MONTHS PAUL AND I HAD BEEN SEARCHING ALL OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA FOR A DOG. WE FOUND HER TUCKED AWAY IN THE CORNER OF THE POMONA HUMANE SOCIETY (PHS). SHE WAS SLEEPING WHEN I FIRST SAW HER—THE LAST OF HER LITTER, THE RUNT. I KNEW I HAD TO HAVE HER. It took me a while to settle on a name for her, because names, and the act of naming, are so important to me and because none of the usual names seemed to fit her. She was such a challenge to train that I ended up naming her Patience; I either had to name her that or take her back to the PHS. For a long time, she was one destroyed pair of shoes away from just that. But she wore grooves in my heart, and soon there was no letting her go. But there we were, barely 10 years later, on the cold, white tile of the veterinarian's floor. Her body was so riddled with cancer she couldn't even lift her head. So I sat with her (where else?), her head cradled in my lap. I remembered her young—a puppy, bounding down the pebbled steps outside our apartment door every time I came home. The vet injected the fatal dose, and I wept—no, I wailed—as the last bit of life heaved from her body. The Haunting of Heaven Halee Gray Scott, PhD

Articles in this issue

view archives of Denver Seminary - Engage Magazine Spring 2019