I didn’t really connect with Roy until right before he died. He was my third dog. He stole food. He bit. He tore up the house. He tugged on the leash. He fought. He threw up in the car.
But he needed a lot of help in his final days, and we grew warmer as I would carry him outside, bring water, clean him up.
In fact, the sicker he got, the more I loved him, and the worse I felt about his leaving.
I spent most of his last weekend caring for him and not for myself. Until, by mid afternoon on Sunday, I was too hungry to neglect. Urgently hungry. But by then I was also too empty or too upset to digest almost anything I could think to eat. Except the chicken pot pie at Coopersmiths, in downtown Fort Collins.
I don’t know how it qualifies as pie; it’s really a thick soup made with frozen vegetables with a flaky puff pastry on top. Comes with a red chunky applesauce on the side. It’s predictable and goes down easy with your grief.
Plus, if you go by yourself, the waitress will serve it in under 5 minutes. (If you go with someone else, you have to wait much longer for your friend’s pizza or whatever before you get your food.)
So, I walked down there alone.
Don’t ask me how this happened, but the restaurant only opened one sidewalk table that day, and I ended up sharing it with this couple I didn’t know.
They were a brother and sister, in town to look at the rock n’ roll art at Walnut Street Gallery. She lived in LaPorte. He lived in another state. They were second cousins to Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, but they hadn’t know him personally.
I told them about Roy. She offered the name of a vet who would come to my house to put him down on Monday. Then they paid for my chicken pot pie.
And I let them because I liked feeling taken care of that day.
Thank you Jerry’s cousins.
That’s why now I always eat chicken pot pie at Coopersmith’s whenever I’m blue, or when I’m just hungry and nothing sounds good.
[Become a fan of Lost Fort Collins on Facebook]
