Pepe was a black Chihuahua, but he had a personality the size of a Great Dane. When my dad called, “Here, boy,” Pepe jumped into his lap or followed him anywhere. Pepe even waited outside the bathroom door while my dad shaved in the morning and again when he brushed his teeth before bed.
Whenever we visited Dad my children liked to play with Pepe and wind him up to the point where their grandpa called Pepe “wild.”
“Have you tamed little Pepe yet?” my twins, Emily and Joey, loved to ask when they called Grandpa.
“Still wild,” Grandpa would say.
When Dad passed away, Pepe came to live with us. He loved the kids. Pepe insisted on sitting perfectly in the middle of them whenever we got in the car—but sometimes I believed he missed Dad as much as I did.
Eventually Pepe’s joints got stiff, and he lost his eyesight to cataracts. We decided it wasn’t fair to keep Pepe alive any longer.
“Grandpa will be waiting for Pepe in heaven, just over the rainbow bridge,” I reminded the kids when we got to the vet’s office that fateful day. I could only pray that my story was true.
I held Pepe gently as the vet gave him the shot. Suddenly I heard my father’s voice, just as clearly as if he were standing beside me. “Pepe!” Dad called. “Here, boy!” Pepe’s head raised up off the vet’s table and turned toward my father’s voice. Then Pepe was gone. I could almost see him running into my father’s arms, just over that rainbow bridge.
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