Less than 48 hours after letting Ky go, Tringa & I were in the school parking lot. She was waiting for me to get her dream catcher and medicine bag attached to her collar. Her Dad, Cowboy, sent it to her via special messenger at Nationals. In other words, Cowboy’s mom, Dorothy couldn’t make it to meet Tringa in person, but her husband Richie did. Richie brought this special gift for Tringa. Cowboy does lots of therapy visits in CA. He wears a dream catcher and medicine bag, too.
I waited until Ky had left us before we used it. I had braided some of Ky’s hair from his left hock and added it to the special medicine Cowboy & Dorothy already had in the medicine bag.
It wasn’t as hard as I expected this visit to be. All the kids knew. In fact, Neil got a CD with the memorials for the kids before anyone else knew about them. Our main students had watched the celebration of Ky’s life. They appreciated being included and sharing memories.
Jake, the one known for squeezing the stuffings out of my heart without warning, had the most to say. I expected this. He was the most attached to Ky. He said he missed him. I told him I did, too, but reminded him he told me last visit (see TGIKy) he was always going to keep him in his heart. So in reality, Ky was always with him. He agreed. And then I told him some of Ky’s hair was in Tringa’s medicine bag. So he was really there, too. Jake brightened up to that thought.
At the end of the visit, Neil got all our students together and they presented me with a collage of photos of them reading to Ky. Under every photo, each student had written their favorite Ky experience and memory.
The very first boy we started this program with 4 years ago had no idea what was going to happen that day. The reading specialist just told him it was a special surprise. I still remember the look on his face when he walked into the room that day!
He wrote his best memory was the first time he saw him. He remembers seeing this big dog and him being little. He also wrote he had been thinking if Ky hadn’t been naughty in his first home, he wouldn’t have come to us and not have met other kids. His last sentence is “Sometimes you have to do a bad thing to do good things.”
Others wrote:
“Ky is a part of my life and what’s happening to him is sad. I am praying for him.”
“Ky helped me read by reading out loud. Ky made me fluent and confident.”
“One of my favorite things about Ky was that he was very sweet and was a very intelligent dog.”
“He didn’t care what you read. If it was a dog book, he would look at you and pay attention.”
Like I said before…
It was perfect.
Ky's photo collage and bouquet from the students
