She was the smartest one.

K-K-K-Katy, beautiful Katy,
You’re the only g-g-g-girl that I adore;
When the m-m-m-moon shines,
Over the cowshed,
I’ll be waiting at the k-k-k-kitchen door.
K-K-K-Katy, beautiful Katy,
You’re the only g-g-g-girl that I adore;
When the m-m-m-moon shines,
Over the cowshed,
I’ll be waiting at the k-k-k-kitchen door.

The first dog. There before I was. I remember her. A creature of legend. My parents found her as a stray, a runty Irish Setter with clusters of ticks so thick on her ears (and elsewhere) that she looked to be wearing a wig. The vet said the ticks had poisoned her blood. He prescribed medication without much hope. It had to be given every two hours. My mother took the tweezers and removed the bloated ticks one by one, dropped them into a peanut butter jar filled with kerosene, and sat up with her for 96 hours straight, all night long, all day long.

Katie pulled through. Having come that close to death, she bonded with both my parents to a degree few people experience. She never got big, but she had a huge personality and intelligence. My dad could be in the bathtub and call down to my mother for a pack of cigarettes, which Katie delivered without fail or slobber. At my grandparents’ house in Salem, they could tell her to get her dinner and she’d come back from the pantry with a can of Ken’l Ration in her mouth. But she also had her own life, which consisted of visiting all the neighbors in Greenwich Township, every day, for three miles around. They could set their watches by her. She visited my godfather “Uncle Herb,” the Hines, Doctor Isabel, the Caldwells (who were for Taft over Ike), and even the Lees, who were artists and registered communists. Katie had no politics.

She was my parents’ first child. They bought a Jeep for $1100, one of the relicts of WWII, no top, no doors, fold down windshield etc. She sat in the back. They could park and go shopping. Katie just waited, motionless, sitting up straight. When they got a little more prosperous, they bought a Jeepster.

Long time ago, dontcha know?

She went everywhere with my mother in that. Then there was the accident. The street to my grandparents’ house was a through street, except for one cross street that had no stop signs. Some woman T-boned my mother’s Jeepster and threw both her and Katie out of the capsized car.

My mother was lying in the street. Katie took off at a gallop to my grandparents’ house, and Lassie-like, tried to lead my grandmother to my mother. But Grandma didn’t get it. She was no longer young. She gave Katie a bath instead, because she smelled so strongly of gasoline. We never spoke of it afterwards.

When the Jeepster came back from the shop, weeks later, restored and ready to drive, Katie absolutely refused to get into it. Never did. Quivered like an aspen.

As I said, dog of legend. My sister and I were both very young when she vanished, but we (three and four?) asked, “Where’s Katie?” I remember. We were in the kitchen. And twilight had fallen. Where’s Katie?

Sometimes, at the end, they go away. They don’t want your tears. They have a place they will go. That’s how our parents explained it to us. Can’t hear this song ever without seeing her.