My Darling Clementine by James Sides

My Darling Clementine

by James Sides

All Clementine ever wanted was a little girl of her own to play with. My wife and I had been trying for five years to have children and as part of my wifes cancer she had when she was a child, there were some complication to the process. My wife always wanted a Bassett named Clementine; I even videotaped her impersonating a Bassett with long ears and a woof while we were engaged. Four years after we were married we were in a house and able to get a Bassett. We already had a Beagle that was small enough for an apartment. But now my wife got to get her Bassett. She had called a place that we had to drive to that had one Bassett puppy left that they were considering keeping. Heather said we would take it with out looking at it. We drive there and picked her up. A few years later we kept noticing that when the front door was open, Clementine would bolt out the door and head two houses over where a little 3-year-old girl lived. She would even do this after the family moved away. Clementine always wanted a little girl of her own to play with. When Clementine was five we had a little girl. She would lick her face so much that we would have to get on to her about it. Well, it was soon after that that Clementine stated having problems. She had knee surgery and got better. Then she started having problems again. After several examinations, our vet referred us to another local vet that was an expert on neural problems. Clementine had trouble walking and it kept getting worse. She did not want to eat either. After several examinations there, we were referred to the Texas A & Ms Small Animal Clinic. Texas A & M is the place where nearly all of the Vets go to school. It is the best place in this part, if not all of the country, to go to for any animal. After several months, they could not make her better. I do believe that they tried their best and they did let her live longer. Her immune system was attacking her. The only way to counter it was to suppress her immune system. Suppressing an immune system can lead to getting an infection. This is what happened to her. We finally decided to do the right thing as I called it and we had her put down to avoid the pain of letting something eat her up from the inside out. I had written a poem about chasing a fading rainbow that described that even despite all of our efforts, time, energy, experts, and money, we could not save her. It is amazing in a world of technology and know how, that some things still happen. The next week we found out our Beagle had a grade III tumor and we had it removed and she went on Chemo Therapy. The Beagle (Bailey is her name) got all the breaks despite a slim chance of making it, that Clementine did not get. I like to think that Clementine somehow handed those breaks to her so she could make it. In the end, Clementine got to have her little girl, she had a very well loved life, all though it was only 5 years long. I do not think of her as having a short life, but a well loved life instead. I still run my hand across the top of her Walnut picture box urn with her ashes in it. It never collects dust as it sits next to the table in our bedroom with a great picture of Clementine being Clementine as only she could be.

Comments would be appreciated by the author, James Side