The reason why the date of Rascal’s death is “unknown”, is that my family and
I still don’t know where he is, he ran away one morning. Somewhere off in some of the deepest parts on the back roads of Virginia, where there had been few houses, there was a large area of dirt and piles of wood from torn down trees from a murdered forest. In one wood pile, my dad had seen one day while collecting wood to heat our house, a couple of puppies deep inside. They were brother and sister. They were quite small and had seemed under two years. About a week later, He came home from work, and told us about them, and the following weekend, he drove us all to that specific place. And just in case, we brought saltine crackers, in case they were to be too scared to come out for us, and sure enough, they were. So, my father had found them burrowed in the hole in the large woodpile, and held out a few crackers in his hand.
Timidly, they approached him, then, they backed back in. I don’t quite remember exactly how long it was that we had waited for my dad to finally get them out, but it was probably around 2 hours. After he got them out, I remember, my mother had said to me, “We’re gonna have some new pets before this day is over!” And she knew she had put a smile on my face, although I hadn’t known the puppies yet. When he had finally succeeded, I saw them, the female, light brownish tan and white, the male, dark brown and white.
They were beautiful.
After about one year of having them, they became a disturbance, they had grown to be annoying and it began to seem as if they hadn’t any intension spans! As time had passed by, they had become more and more irritating and annoying, mostly Rascal had. Their first names were Sampson and Delilah. But after a while, we had decided to change their names to Lulu and Rascal. Soon, Rascal had become totally unliked by most of the family. Lulu was and still is a good dog, but as “open” as she had used to be.
Rascal had always chased after fireworks, and literally stuck his face into them, biting at them. He barked at them and fought with them for hours and hours, and entertained our family, growing to feel affection for Rascal. He really was always a sweetheart. And admitting the fact that I had always loved Rascal, was never hard. I always had my issues with him at times, for example, I had started my own small garden one evening, and the next morning, I’d found that he’d destroyed it. And to be honest, I actually was so mad at him, that I wanted him to sit in the road and get killed. That was awful of me, I know for a fact, because before that, my kitten, Minnieme, who has a story on this site, was hit by a car and killed, and I knew I was over reacting at the time,
and I calmed myself.
The year after after that, everyone had almost fully grown to love Rascal. And in the winter, my dad brought home a new puppy, this one was even smaller than Lulu and Rascal when they were puppies. He was in horrible condition, and soon, we had him all fixed up. And he grew to become friends with Rascal and Lulu. Weeks later, my dad had come home from work with two more puppies, the first one’s sisters. These three, had been born in a dumpsters and there too. We fixed these two up, and Rascal had become like a mother to all of them, even though he was a male. He watched over them, and they had fought roughly, but he had always broken fights up. And when I called for them and they didn’t come, Rascal brought them back to me. This was the time that everyone had cherished Rascal’s company. We finally named the three puppies. The two girls’ names were Gypsy and Hazel.
The male’s name became Tucker.
Then one morning, I woke up late to come down into the kitchen, and find my mother standing by the sink with a worried look on her face. “Then she told me that you hadn’t come back to her call for hours and hours. She said that because of this, you had raised her doubt that you would ever come back. Today is only one day in the year after, February 9, 2006. Rascal, you ran away in winter last year, and I haven’t seen you since. I never even got to say goodbye, though I NEVER wanted to. Where are you?”
P.S. I always dream that you have come back, but awake to find that you haven’t…..
Hurry home for my birthday,
| Rascal |
| Nils & Hayley Geertsen |