Sunday Story: God Save the Queen

Have you started sharing your stories with The Annoyed Army Wife yet?  Well, you should!!!

Summer, 1996

I was finishing up seventh grade at Lester Middle School in Okinawa when LtCol Dad began negotiating orders for our next family adventure.  We were due to rotate, Dad was close to retirement and starting to think about "Twilight Tours" from which he could network for a post-Marine Corps career, Big Brother was in high school and I was close to starting, and Little Brother was starting school too.  The lease for the house in Triangle (Virginia) was up during the summer, and all signs pointed to us moving back "home".

That is, until LtCol Dad received a phone call with several non-Virginia options for his next duty station:  Hawaii...California...London...  The billets were all different, with different ramifications for his career and the likelihood of promotion to Colonel, but they were all exciting, offering a million different adventure possibilities for what would probably be our family's "last hurrah" with the Marines.  We had a family meeting that night, and Big Brother and I were not pleased when our parents told us they intended to request the job in London.  We hadn't been to the States in three years and wanted to go back home.  We pouted.

But, the show must go on, so the move was scheduled, the shipments divided, and the packers came.  We returned home for the summer, visiting our old neighborhood (and not recognizing our old friends) and both sides of the family (in North Carolina and Illinois).  We visited with Mama A's side of the family in Southern Illinois first, arranging to leave the ski boat at my uncle's Mini Storage facility for three more years.  We kept pet rabbits, left as a practical joke to my grandfather after a backyard party, in a homemade hutch in the backyard (leaving them with cousins when we left a few weeks later).  We picked up our Explorer, which my grandparents had been keeping for us, and LtCol Dad and Big Brother drove, along with the collie dog, to the East Coast.  Mama A, Little Brother, and I flew to North Carolina a few days later.  We visited my dad's side of the family, and arranged for those grandparents to continue car-sitting our other family car, keeping it out at their farm in a special barn.  Nana and Gramps would also keep our collie, Slammer, while we lived in London.  The quarantine for dogs in England was six months, and Slammer had never been in a kennel.  She was old and wouldn't understand why she couldn't live with us for so long.  My parents didn't think she'd survive the six month caged stay, and that she'd be happier with my grandparents, who'd raised three collies over the years.  I broke the house rules and allowed Slammer to sleep in my bed with me the last night before we flew across the Atlantic.

The next morning, Slammer hid under the deck.  She saw suitcases and knew something big was about to happen.  She saw us packing the car without her leash and dishes.  We finally coaxed her out to say goodbye.  I hugged her tight, crying into her fur, promising I'd write her letters (later, Slammer would dictate letters to Nana, who would mail them to me in England).

We piled into the car and drove away, Slammer sitting dutifully at the gate to the backyard, sadly hoping her children would return to her soon.  As I strained to see her through the glass windows, tears stained my cheeks.  It was the last time I would see my beloved dog.  Nana called about 18 months later, one week before my 15th birthday, to tell us that Slammer had died.  My grandparents had recently returned from a visit to see us, and I firmly believe that Slammer smelled us on their clothes and wondered why we'd abandoned her.  She took her last breath at the back gate, searching for us in the exact spot where she'd seen us last.  It would be months before I forgave my parents for not bringing Slammer to London with us.