Burt’s death has lead me into a six month period of disinterest in writing or taking photos, which I’m only just now coming out of. At the time I refused to accept the possibility of his mortality, but as his hips locked up more frequently, as his troubles holding his bladder moved beyond being an occasional mishap, my wife knew he wouldn’t live through the winter. At the risk of becoming one of those poor saps finding meaning in anthropomorphism, I’m going to believe Burt stayed around as long as he did so as to love our two year old son, as he very quietly and unassumingly became the first irreplaceable dog in our son’s life.

Having worked with sick animals on and off for some time, I’ve grown accustomed to the occasional need for euthanasia. I’ve come across people who were holding on for dear life to the life of their pet, flippantly muttering to myself of their selfishness in allowing their animal to experience dreadful suffering in an effort to avoid letting go themselves.

Yet as I talked with the vet about Burt’s cancer that afternoon in February and requested we take him home for just one more evening before we carried out the inevitable, I found myself in just that position. Expecting him to hobble over to me after getting checked out as he had done the prior few days, and nuzzle himself into my arms while I situated him back in the car for the short ride home, my stomach bottomed out when three techs accompanied the vet in carrying out a stretcher containing our dying family dog. He was barely able to lift his head. He looked up at me a few times, panting the slightly more intense pant he developed the day before, while I fumbled him into the back seat of the car next to our son’s car seat. I struggled in positioning his mostly limp body, and questioned down to my bones whether leaving the vet for one last night with him was even remotely within the realm of the appropriate.

Burton, a lanky, shiny coated Golden Retriever, was deep red in color, with a narrow head and long snout, and a set of ears he’d perch up on his head when he sensed cookies. My wife, originally looking for a traditional stocky, blockheaded Golden, stumbled upon Burt at a retriever rescue. Having undergone hip surgery after being hit by a car, he was nicknamed “Chance” by the employees (short for “Second Chance”, or really “Last Chance”). He strolled into the front office of the rescue, and on seeing him my wife instantly knew she was going to lose her self control and be suckered into taking this wonky scrap of a dog, despite her desires to the contrary.

That was over 14 years ago.

Residences and addresses have changed, boyfriends and friends have come and gone, other dogs and random cats have arrived and left or been put down. But always, there was Burt. When we knew I would become a lot more than just a passing mile marker in my wife’s timeline, Burt began to regularly walk over and nuzzle his nose in my lap, completely uncharacteristic of him in his behavior with other males of any species. Many a night I would look at him while I rubbed his head, and he’d look back with those eyes, those endless black pools of experience. A poor sap prone to anthropomorphism, I fancied him an old soul wise beyond his years, perhaps incarnated to eventually protect our growing little family.

These memories welled up in me as I lay next to Burt by the fireplace that evening, flanked on either side by my wife and son, all of us stroking his fur while he looked around, panting. Having long lost the ability to hold his bladder, he lay on frequently-changed extra bath towels we put on top of a large set of couch cushions.

My wife fell asleep on Burt and held that position deep into the next morning, her head still laying on his chest when I came into the living room to wake her.

We left our son home with our friend, and took Burt in the very back of the station wagon to the vet’s office. I lay my hand on the side of his chest. After two vials of strong sedatives and a syringe of pentobarbital, his heart stopped beating under my fingertips. I moved my forehead away from the bridge of his snout where it had been resting, his eyes glazed over amidst one last long, sighing exhalation. His body exhibited slight postmortem twitches, and now relaxed, his bowels emptied some of their contents onto the cool stainless steel veterinary table. Death surely be not proud.

I’m not sure I could quantify how long we stayed in the vet office sitting next to him. My wife asked to save a lock of his fur, which she has since kept next to his ashes on the shelf above her computer desk in the family room. I sat petting his lifeless body, most likely more for my own comfort than for his.

The severity of my grief reaction surprised even me. At several points over the next few days, I was suddenly but privately emotional to the point of nearly vomiting. That level of loss has occurred only one other time in my life, connected with the unexpected and tragic death of my father. It was the only other time in my life I was slammed with the consciousness that never seeing someone again really meant never again, and that really, truly meant never again. It overwhelmed me to an unfathomable depth.

But that feeling faded, as has the vividness of that experience, as has the gut-wrenching quality to the grief over Burt’s death. At some point during that trip to the vet we snapped back into our space-time position, realized our son is home with our friend, dinner must be cooked, the other dogs must be fed, jobs required our presence.

Last I noticed, his food and water bowls are still on the floor next to the cabinet in the kitchen where the dog food is kept. His collar is still in the bathroom next to our son’s bucket of bath toys. I suppose it’s telling we haven’t boxed them up yet, but I’m sure that time will come.

It’s the worst part of death, really, the idea of moving on. There is the temptation to hold onto every shred of denial we can afford ourselves. In the end, we are only left with our memories and a few physical belongings, none of which can reverse what happened.

Our bustling, midgeted human has blazed through his second year of life, turning two at the end of this past October. He was born just in time for Halloween.

Among his many recent discoveries is that the volume at which he yells my name is in direct proportion to the likelihood I’ll interrupt E mid-sentence to respond. Generally, the progression goes from “daddy?” to “Daddy?” to “DADDY!!!” I’ll answer “Yes, munchkin?” and he’ll point out the window at a passing vehicle and very matter-of-factly say, “Truck.”

And a truck it is. He should know, he’s absolutely obsessed with them. And airplanes. And trains. And cars. And pigs, and cows, and elephants, and giraffes, and dogs, and cats. And he can name them all, and make their noises. He can also identify “cupcakes”, and knows that the answer to “What does the cupcake say?” is “Yummmmmmm.”

Unfortunately, while he is also good at pointing out and identifying our neighbors’ animals, the response to our pointing toward a particular black and white cat from the next block and questioning, “What is that, L?” has shifted to “MINE!” coupled with a “gimme” beckoning hand motion.

And every once in awhile, he slows down enough for us to snap some photos. Whether he’s sneaking through drawers…

… or playing “ghost”…

… or picking out pumpkins…

… or telling Daddy “shhhhhhh”…

… or shopping for groceries (that we’ve already bought)…

… or Swiffering the hell out of the kitchen…

… or attending airplane shows…

… or bowling (who doesn’t love bowling?)…

… he’s always getting into something. And whatever he’s getting into, he gets into it knee deep.

And no, no we’re not yet cutting his hair.

In late July, I packed up the car and headed down through San Marcos to Sattler, Texas to meet up with friends I’ve known for the better part of fifteen years. The plan was simple: grill a ton of food, drink a ton of beer (most of us), talk as much shit as possible, and make the seven hour float trip down the Guadalupe River. Having long been nicknamed “Brofest” or the “Sattler Swordfest”, this gentlemen’s gathering has become tradition, and I was happy to make the trek to lower Texas and take part in my first such retreat.

I’ve known for years now that staying entrenched in my own daily life causes my focus to become terribly narrow, small issues and experiences to seem overwhelming, and it’s only by getting away and stepping outside the routine that some shred of perspective is restored.

While what happens at Brofest proverbially stays at Brofest, I will say that in addition to the expected change in perspective, I gained an awareness that in the age of the Internet as a communication medium and the ease with which friends can become text on a screen, with the comfort of having a wife and the addition of a child to my family with all his attendant needs, it had become even easier to stay physically isolated in my tiny, daily bubble. I had, at some point, thrown face-to-face human socialization on the back burner.

Much later, on the morning of September 12th, E and I woke to our Sunday ritual of sitting in bed next to each other while L jumped around and threw pillows at us. E checked her email on the mini laptop, and received a single message stating that one of her best friends succumbed that weekend to a fifteen year battle with cancer. E was devastated beyond words. We booked her a plane ticket, and tried to pack a suitcase. Her friend had been only 38.

Less than twenty four hours later, we both sat in the airport lobby waiting for her delayed flight to begin boarding. We didn’t say a whole lot, she put her head on my shoulder a few times, and mostly talked about how she would miss me and L. But in the midst of one particular stretch of silence, I verbalized an understanding we both had arrived at independently that morning, that of the overwhelmingly temporary nature of our lives.

E and I routinely discuss life goals, changes we’d like to make, possible career moves, the pursuit of various trades and hobbies, the eventual sale of our house after the completion of its remaining projects. We talk of plans for L’s childhood, parts of the world we’d love him to see, oceans we’d love him to swim in, “firsts” we’d like him to experience. We even talk about what part of the country we’d like him to grow up in, throwing around the idea of possibly moving back to the East Coast. We’ve spoken of these things as if they’re reserved for some future time period that exists after some particular life circumstance magically changes.

In the hours that elapsed between receiving the news the previous morning and passing the pre-flight moments at the airport, it became strikingly evident that most of us walk around feeling as if we have a limitless amount of time to make our dreams happen. We think that “someday” we will travel, or rekindle some friendship, or make that career change, or reconcile with that loved one, or build that new house. In reality, that time runs out, and possibly far sooner than expected.

In the days following E’s plane departure and this change in perspective, I was again confronted with my tendencies toward isolation and myopic immersion in the daily grind, and the exclusion of almost all else. I started making small changes, first just simply making sure L and I got to playgrounds on a regular basis. This has since grown into making sure E and I make the effort to cultivate the friendships we value, and that we make time to pursue the hobbies we’ve always hoped will turn into careers.

On the afternoon that I sat with E at the airport and wished her goodbye, I later returned to work and spoke with my friend Sean. I was still overwhelmed with the weird consciousness of life’s ever-shrinking duration, while heavily overcome with a secondary grief reaction to E’s friend’s death. I proceeded to vomit all this on him in the hopes of some shred of relief.

When my outpouring finally came to a close and there was room for him to talk, he waited a minute, and simply said, “I know, B. This is why Brofest is so important.”

My son, however, knows exactly what time of year it is. While I tend to have grown up worries about things like the pipes under the house, the tree that needs to be taken down, the shifts in the foundation from Texas weather fluctuations, he is conscious only of how long we let him stay in the pool, or how wet he can get us if he manages to get ahold of the hose.

As a parent, I fall into the trap of hovering and being too restrictive. Underneath that is simply the desire to protect my son from mishaps that can unwittingly cause harm (or cost a lot of money). Despite those intentions, a major early lesson staring me in the face is the need to let go, and let out the leash. It’s more difficult than it sounds, I’ve discovered it takes practice on a conscious level. The payoff is the expression on his face when he discovers something wonderful or experiences something new.

Though I’m sure every parent has had well-meaning rules they’ve enacted for themselves related to their parenting style (that probably last about as long as “I won’t become my parents”), I’m resolving now that if I succeed at nothing else, I would hope I just don’t grow him up too quickly.

Time has a habit of running together during the madcap adventures of a munchkin growing up from age zero, I could have sworn I was thirty four last year. Regardless, I managed to squeak by the Grim Reaper long enough to reach this new and somewhat anticlimactic milestone. I’m constantly surprised I made it past twenty with all the shenanigans I pulled as a youth.

In sharp contrast to my violently unstable teens and twenties, life today is mostly white-picket-fence and HGTV. And it sure as hell better be, we are shaping the life and future of a little one, so anything but stability is entirely selfish. At some point right around thirty, the proverbial fork appeared in the road. Either I was going to continue to hold onto the dream and act like I was twenty two, recklessly pursuing fast music and even faster cars, or I was going to grow up and go the age-appropriate route, calming down enough to start a family and mold a happy, healthy home.

I obviously took the path that has speed-bumped around to finally arrive at a stable home life, and I’ve not had a single regret. I’m frequently asked whether I’m enjoying family life, and I have to fight off the dry heaves as I actually find myself standing on the brink of using words like “fulfilling” or saying “I’ve found my greater purpose”.

To celebrate my birthday, E treated me to a trip out to Fort Worth to see the Zoo’s Museum of Living Art, their newly constructed reptile and amphibian house. What started out as an excursion allowing me to take some photographs of the animals happily turned into a chance to watch L see all the wildlife for the first time.

By the time we ran around the Zoo a few times trying to escape the unmistakable stench of elephant poop, L was wiped out and went narcoleptic on the car ride home. Italian food and films capped off the day’s indulgences, and we all slept soundly that night to the sound of a thunderstorm. I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday.

Liam is now eighteen months old, and trying to either disassemble or climb on everything he sees. I keep my camera ready, looking for those rare quiet moments.

In April our friends planned an Easter egg hunt for the kiddos. After looking upon individual eggs with wonder, and giving all his eggs to mommy to make sure she had enough, he wound up with very few himself.

Though he inherited my horrible allergies, his newfound love du jour seems to be slobbery dog kisses. We finally brought in the big guns and let the lawn service conquer the backyard jungle, so it’s quite the little place to run around now. The pup pups are enamored with him, and tolerate even the most awkward of ear tugs and tail pulls.

L’s other newfound love is the telephone. Every ring elicits a loudly yelled “MAMA!!”, no doubt having had the phone associated with E’s evening calls to home during late work nights. Though we continually position the phone out of reach, he continually finds chairs to push over to the high table and scoots himself up to fiddle with the buttons and call people from the saved phone number directory. At one point we caught him having successfully started dialing “011 44″ followed by not much of anything on his part as we quickly snatched the phone away.

But no matter what destruction befalls our home by his hand, every night when he sleeps our twenty four hour amnesia kicks in, and to us he reverts back to being just our pure, angelic little munchkin.

Though my idea of a walk is the standard cinematic father and son mosey down the sidewalk with some rock kicking and the occasional stumble, L is more inclined to tear ass down the street as soon as his feet leave the lawn and hit pavement. Half the time the walk is more of a chase, and what appears to be a comforting hug on film is more a grab and lift in the case of approaching traffic.

E got me over my phobia of being too far from the front door by going and actually locking it, so I agreed to roll down to the park for some swings and slides. We hit the mulch and L nearly forgot he had parents.

At first we thought the swings would be innocent enough, but after placing L in the swing in the correct direction he somehow found a way to make it weird and uncomfortable. He refused to sit up, and just drooped his limbs down like dead weight and leaned his head over the edge pointing everything straight down like a dead sack of potatoes.

Finally we turned him around in the swing so he was sitting backwards, the higher back portion of the swing under his armpits. He straightened up a bit and gave us some high fives.

As soon as we freed him of the swing’s shackles, he made a beeline for the slides. He was able to climb most of the stairs himself (under supervision), and took to the smaller slide like a fish in water.

Just as suddenly as he lit up at the idea of the park, he was done. He gave us the big adios, and tried to tear ass across the park to wherever it was he thought he was going.

Just out of frame, of course, is E giving chase.

Having been let out from work early to get home safely, I picked up L from daycare and went home to the warm house. We played in the living room for most of the afternoon, but I couldn’t resist bundling him up for a few minutes outside in what was then roughly six to seven inches of snow.

He stomped around with big stomps for a few minutes, made it all the way down to the sidewalk and back onto the front lawn, before the fun ended and he started getting cold and uncomfortable.

He at least managed to avoid the yellow snow left against the base of our trees by the neighborhood dogs, for which I am quite thankful.

Christmas Eve brought not only a whopping Texas blizzard sized half inch of snow, but also nausea and lots of vomiting for one and all. Apparently L had picked up a stomach bug when he went to the doctor for his bilateral ear infections, and gave us the ultimate Christmas present. The only one who wasn’t sick was E, we’re presuming that’s because her stomach is made of hate, and not even bacteria can live in such an environment.

One of the more fantastic things about a tree with sharp needles is that it has built-in baby deterrents. Anytime L put his hand on any of the branches, he’d automatically yank it back and walk away in disgust. Finally he realized he could at least steal a candy cane off one of the lower branches, and figured the best way to eat it was with the plastic on. That got deep-sixed with the quickness.

We finished decorating the tree and wrapping all the presents at two in the morning, as is customary last-minute fashion for our family. E suggested I snap a photo of the tree with everything laid out and peaceful, before the morning comes and L declares war on anything wrapped.

Morning finally came, and in between vomits L cautiously crept his way through the stack of presents not really knowing what to make of any of it. We helped him unwrap a few, and he again trotted around flailing his arms and throwing the wrapping paper into big piles.

He finally calmed down enough to brave the big red doggie, and giggled as we hopped the blue one around while making barking noises.

Whether or not he fully appreciated all that was Christmas, we still had a lot of fun watching him and listening to his squeals and cackles of laughter.

She dolled up L in his proper little dress shirt and bow tie, and let him run around the bedroom while she got ready to bring him down to Santa’s Workshop.

Unfortunately, L didn’t realize that when he continues to pull the caps off the toilet screws in the bathroom, each “NO” will get progressively louder, and will be eventually followed by a smack on the hand. He crumpled into a little pile on the bathroom floor to show how horrible and dreadful it was to be reprimanded.

I did not go down to see Santa with them, so unfortunately all I received are two pieces of information secondhand: Everyone loved L and his bowtie, and L hated, hated, hated Santa.