Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Flowers for Camille


She was somewhat of a diva and she certainly had issues, but I adored her.
I think the feeling was eventually mutual. I was, ultimately, the only human she trusted.
I’ve read somewhere that you will always remember the day you brought your dog home, and the day they left you.
She wasn’t a product of a puppy mill, but she certainly didn’t receive anything close to proper socialization prior to coming to live with us. I should have known better. It took me the better part of an hour to get her to come to me, sitting in the dirt in a corner of the outdoor enclosure where she and her siblings were kept. She was the only one of the litter who, eventually, would dare come close.
She made a charming little “roo-roo” sound when she was uncertain about something, and I heard it then for the first time from the cutest little white ball of fluff I’d ever seen. Sort of a plaintive half-growl, half question, meaning she wanted to, but she was a little reticent, a little afraid. Usually, she would make up her mind to push ahead, enter the unknown, take a chance. And there, in the dirt, she came to me and put her nose in my hand. She was willing to take a chance on me.
We enjoyed almost twelve years together. She was beautiful, elegant, intelligent and devoted, but she approached life at full throttle and therefore encountered more than her share of accidents and mishaps. So much so that, as she grew older, my intuition told me that she would not cross over that rainbow bridge quietly. And so it was. I was able to hold her in my arms and tell her what a wonderful friend she had been, and to ask her to meet me there, one day.
I’m certain that when my time comes, my little Camille will be there to greet me with her funny “roo-roo, come on over, mom, we’ve all been waiting for you!”


16 x 20 Oil on canvas
www.katywidger.com
Dog Portraits in Oil

2 comments:

Diana Moses Botkin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Diana Moses Botkin said...

This is beautiful, Katy. What a lovely remembrance of a great dog!