Immortal Dogs

Growing up, my friends and siblings and I joked that my family’s westie, Frosty, was ageless or better, immortal. He seemed like an old and wise dog for a long time and my friends always asked, “how old is he, really!?” None of us chose to find out, preferring to live with the belief that he’d always be around. When my friends moved away from Annapolis, I’d send them pictures of him and they’d laugh, “he’s going to live forever!” Frosty’s name became synonymous with the marching of time and sometimes, the mysteriousness of it.

He illuminated questions we all have about life: How do we stay the same and keep our youthful spirit yet keep aging? How can we fathom such a constant in our lives one day being gone? Even Frosty’s full name, Frosty Snowflake Winter, is an ode to his ethereal self. Sometimes, he went by Old Man Winter, sometimes just Old Man. He, like his namesakes, represents something constant yet ever-changing: the blowing in of a season, the melting of a snowman, the aging of a beloved friend. 

All of these things feel like a given: the seasons always change, the snowman always melts, the people and pets we love eventually die. But none of us wanted to let go of Frosty. We all held on to the belief that he’d live forever. For months we wondered: How do we know when it’s time? Some time ago, I took him on what would be our last walk down the winding road to our neighborhood pier. A walk we’d made hundreds of times. On the way back, he couldn’t make it up the last hill. So, I picked him up in my arms and carried him home.