MY PEACHIE

I had a dream this evening. It was about my little dog Peachie and our cat Poncho. It was nighttime in the dream and I was sitting out on the front steps of someone’s house. I think my mother was speaking to me, I forget now. In my dreams I oftentimes confuse her and my husband. Anyway, in this dream I suddenly became very uneasy, I sensed that the cat could run out and since our cat is old and sick I panicked. I called in the dream for someone to close the front screen before he escaped but then I saw Poncho behind the fence in our old yard in Chicago. I yelled that he was outside and sure enough he was off like a shot.

We are actually on vacation in North Carolina, in the mountains, so we’ve been very vigilant with Poncho. He keeps looking out the sliding doors hoping to get out but he’s so old, if he got away from us he wouldn’t last very long. That concern probably prompted the dream.

So I am chasing Poncho in the dream and now my husband is chasing him too then I suddenly see my dog Peachie run out. Peachie is a tiny Poodle terrier mix. When she was a little puppy she ran out the front door and headed directly for the street. I was hysterical and went out after her then realized if I continued to chase her she would continue to run right into traffic so I went down on my knees and called her.  She stopped and spun around and ran right back to me.

I grabbed her and hugged her so hard; my heart was pounding. Since that day I’ve been terrified for her.

Well in this dream tonight she did it again, she ran down the block, and it was nighttime. Naturally it had to be nighttime so that I would be doubly frightened. I stopped chasing her suddenly, turned back when I heard someone had caught Poncho and sure enough Peachie came whizzing back, running toward our front steps. I was so relieved.

That was it; that was the whole dream.

When I awoke I was upset for some reason, my mind racing to make certain both of them were all right and in bed with us. Poncho was between my husband and me but I couldn’t for the life of me remember where Peachie was. I began to panic and my mind whirled as I tried to figure out where she was sleeping. She was never far from us, she always slept between us.

Then it hit me. She’s been dead for over a year. It still took a few seconds for that reality to push through my brain but when it did it was like a knife. And I cried. I cried as if it had just happened, I cried for that little dog that I loved so very much, my little Peach. She was a pistol, tiny and quick and just a real bitch when it came to her sleeping spot between me and Dick. If any of the other dogs or cats tried to come close she was after them like a Rottweiller, poised to kill. The trouble was she weighed about seven pounds; her little mouth couldn’t open wide enough to bite your thumb let alone do much damage, but she was a fearsome thing to behold when her temper was up.

I miss her so much. God how I still miss her and all our dogs, all four are dead now, but I especially miss her for some reason. I keep thinking we have to get another dog but something inside my little brain thinks that would be disloyal. She was my little girl, my Peachie Magee. How could I replace her?

Then again, it’s so lonely here without her, without any of my dogs, how can we not?