A month after Scotty and I got married we made a trip to Sebree KY to look at a litter of Yorkies. We picked a cute roly poly one, they bathed him, gave him a tiny blue bandanna and spritzed him with a little cologne. He was 2 pounds and couldn't even crawl over Scotty's shoe. That was 13 years ago and in those 13 years Kory was with us through everything. When I had bilateral foot surgery and couldn't bear weight on my feet for 4 weeks he was curled up beside me, when I had a miscarriage and didn't get off the couch for 2 weeks he was on the couch too, when I was on bed rest with my pregnancies he was on bed rest too. Kory moved from every apartment and every house we've had. For 6 years he was our baby, then we rocked his world when Cade was born. I remember Kory laying across my very pregnant belly and the baby (whichever one it was at the time) kicking or moving and Kory growling at my belly b/c they had disrupted his sleep. Every baby we brought home from the hospital would cause Kory to look at us with a look that could only be described as "Seriously? Another one?". The best way I can explain his attitude towards the kids is that he tolerated them. They had a strict "if you don't bother me, I won't bother you" policy. That of course didn't stop the kids from bothering him. He would huff and puff and just get up and move out of their reach. The past few years we dubbed him the "grumpy old man". He laid on my legs or curled next to me and if I moved he would growl then get up and move where he wouldn't be bothered. His health has been getting worse for a couple years and today it got the best of him. I am relieved that he will not suffer and that we didn't have to watch him get worse. I will miss the warmth of his tiny little body against my leg. I will miss him curled behind my knees in bed. I will miss the sound of his claws on the floor (okay, that was actually annoying). I will miss his deep brown eyes looking at me in hope that I will save him from one of the kids. I will miss the comfort that I felt just by wrapping him in my arms and pulling him close to me while watching TV.
When we told Cade and Aly that Kory went to Heaven I wasn't quite expecting the questions that would come from a 5 year old. The conversation went like this:
Aly: "How do you get to Heaven?"
Scotty: "Jesus comes and gets your spirit and takes it with Him."
Aly: "What's a spirit?"
Cade: "It's the thing that's inside you that makes you move."
Scotty: "It's your soul. You know, your thoughts and feelings."
Aly: "What's a soul?"
Me: "Aly, go to sleep."
Aly: "Kory is in Heaven which is in outer space. He can see the stars and moon and all the other beautiful things. What does Heaven look like?"
Me: "Heaven is beautiful, now go to sleep."
Aly (chanting): "Kory's in Heaven, Kory's in Heaven, Kory's in Heaven..."
Cade (who had not been crying to this point starts wailing): "I'm going to miss him! I can't wait until we get to Heaven so we can see him again."
Oh and if you wonder what Avery thinks...she just walks around saying "gog, gog?"
Rest in Peace Kory Dog.
