Denise Lee Porter

Rest in Peace Storm

Back in 1994 my then teenaged boys chose the black pup with the white chest from a litter of brown pups. She was a beautiful puppy with white paws and  a diamond shaped white spot on the back of her neck which  was probably why my son Khalil named her Storm.

Back then I was working on my degree and Storm kept me company  when I stayed up all night doing homework. When the kids grew up and moved out and my husband went on tour with El Pus, it was the presence of Storm in the house that helped me to not feel quite as paranoid as I can get to feeling.

She’s always been the kids’ dog or my husband’s dog but within the past two years or so I began to realize that dogs really can be as neurotic as their owners and that in some ways Storm and I (being the only females in the house) had acquired each others habits:

• we are  both slightly deaf and you may have to call us several times before we come
• we both enjoy a good rub (top of the head, behind the ears, back, belly) or a good brush as long as you go with the fur
• we both run to the kitchen and get very happy when our men get home (but we try not to do it at the same time)
• we are both very  jumpy, Storm is very sensitive to noises and quite capable of scaring herself while eating or drinking (did I mention that she trips over her own paws?)
• we are also both going gray and losing our eyesight
• and finally we are both getting older but we look pretty damn good

Last night I was fooling around doing online surveys and listening to some recorded calls when my husband came upstairs and we started talking about fast food commercials. Then he started telling me how Storm wanted to go out but got to the back porch and did that thing she does where she doesn’t actually want to go outside, so he left her on the porch and continue watching the Lakers/Nuggets.  When he checked on her he noticed that she had done her business right there on the porch and he got some paper and cleaned it up and then when he came back she was laying there dead.

Let me interject here that my husband is a bit of a kidder and the fact that he took so long to tell me this tale led me to the conclusion that he was kidding me , which is what I said and what I really truly wanted to believe.  So I ran downstairs to check, and sure enough Storm was laying  stretched out on the back porch and her eyes were open.

There’s not much else to say except I didn’t know that the death of  my dog would leave me so…so grief-stricken. Rest in peace my constant companion, I will miss you laying under my feet as I work at the kitchen table; I will miss your dismissive glance as I enter the kitchen from the garage each afternoon; most of all I will miss just knowing that you are here protecting me when no one else is home.

I know that you have gone to that big kitchen in the sky and that even now you are circling the island hoping that St Peter will drop a hot dog at the Memorial Day barbecue. But as your master always told you - be a Lady Storm, just be a Lady.