Chapter two

The alarm goes off around 7:30 am and it’s time to start school. I go up on the bed and start to roll around and lick his face until he wakes up. His mom helps him get dressed and then they go to the dinner table to start school. While teaching in school they use a braille typewriter which is really cool and stuff but all it does is make dots, but they seem to understand so I don’t question the dots. He has to be homeschooled for now, but I’ve heard talk about in a few years if he progresses at the rate he does then it’s possible for him to go to school for special kids. At lunch every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday they go out to eat. They leash my harness on to me to tell people I’m at work so please do not disturb me. Which is a nice way of saying, “Don’t touch me, I’m busy, if you were in my spot you’d realize how hard this job is so hands to yourself!”

We leave the door and walk over the Chick-fil-a because that’s what he wants. While his mom holds his hand I still have to do my job to the best of my abilities. When the crosswalk change I make sure there aren’t any dumb humans driving when the light is red. I do a slight pull and wait for him to start walking, then we cross the street. Sometimes Mom likes to watch me do my job which doesn’t really offend because I worked two years for this, let me do it, so I hit the handicap button with my snout and the door opens.

Once they have their food they get a booth and I lay down on the floor. There are always those people that just stare at me and I stare back just thinking don’t you even dare think about petting me. Today there is a really young girl that walks up to me and pets my back. It feels good and I don’t mind it until I see an older boy, most likely a brother walks up to me. These kids always go wild. Of course, he doesn’t fail, and he basically just jumps on my back like I’m some sort of pillow which really annoys me. I bark which makes the whole restaurant look at me like I’m some sort of untrained guide dog, but I just want to say, “Would you like a toddler laying on your back while slapping your fur when you’re trying to rest?” Mom goes up and pulls the boy off me and returns him to his parents, and the sister follows. Mom doesn’t come back, so I just assume that she is getting in on a fight or telling them why what he was doing was wrong.

We return home when we get home mom calls, “Alex!” I run up to the kitchen to get treats, listen to Mom teach history and then at some point fall asleep.

When I wake up Sam is in his room, while he isn’t crying, I feel his emotions fall onto me like a wave. He’s sad he was born like this, he wants to be a normal child and go to a regular school, see, hear, have friends, and not need me to do everything for him. I try to comfort him but he just pushes me away wanting to be filled in his emotions by himself, so I leave the room.

That evening they eat in silence and so do I. Then Sammy goes to bed and Mom plays with me tonight. She walks me around the park, I ate treats, and I got to meet some other dogs. When we go in Sammy is asleep and I go in his room and fall asleep ready for the next day to probably be more or less the same.

For about 3 months straight it has been the same schedule which really doesn’t bother me at all. Today is the weekend so usually we just stay home, go out to eat, play, and most importantly sleep! I go into Sammy’s room in the morning to see mom in there putting all this decoration in his room. I go to bark to ask, “What are you doing?” but she puts a finger over her mouth telling me to stay quiet. Of course, I do but I’m so confused why she is doing this. I look at the clock and see that it's 7:00 in the morning.

        I watch for about 30 minutes with Mom putting up paper with braille, confetti all over the ground and a cupcake on the desk next to the bed. She wakes up Sammy and lets him get adjusted before she gives him a piece of paper. At this point I have no clue what’s happening. Like why is she making school class so fancy, and that piece of food, or how it’s the weekend so there shouldn’t be school at all, I just start to bark. Sammy reads the paper and turns to his mom and smiles. Sammy barely ever talks, of course he actually can but he never does. “Happy Birthday,” Mom yells.

In reply Sammy says, “I love you.” Him just talking is a miracle, but saying I love you just made Mom swell up with tears as she gives him a huge hug.

        It’s kinda depressing when you think about it, since he is blind and deaf Sammy doesn’t really have friends, so he just celebrated his birthday with me and Mom. Sammy did get a letter from Dad saying, “Happy Birthday Buddy, I love you!” Mom showed Sammy and Sammy didn’t react the same way he reacted to Mom. She told Sammy not to believe a word written down because if Dad did love Sammy and her then he wouldn’t have left them with nothing.

        It was a busy day eating out for dinner and lunch. By the time we got home from dinner with a couple of Mom’s friends it was 7. We all ended the night early with happy thoughts in our mind. Plus we need the sleep, tomorrow is a big day.

Do I know what we are doing today? heck no! Am I excited? heck yes! Why? Well I don’t really know all I know is Mom is excited so I’m excited. They put the harness on me and us three leave for the car.

Mom puts down the window and says this is gonna be a long ride. I don’t know who she was talking to, it was only us and Sammy can’t hear, and Mom doesn’t know I understand every word she says. Now I know I’m amazing, more important, smarter and all around better than your normal dog and…, well basically what I’m trying to say is that I’m a dog to and sometimes can’t understand everything a human does. It feels like it’s been hours in the car, but mom says, “Wow, no traffic today, we got lucky only 30 minutes!”

I go out of the car and see that we are at a doctor’s office. We walk in and Mom does paperwork or something and I decide to take a really quick nap. When I wake up I see a doctor.

“Hello, Mrs. Buddington,” says mom.

“Hello Nancy Adams,” says the doctor.

This is news to me, like hello, who is Nancy Adams that’s Mom but whatever call you what you want, you have a degree is doctor-ism not name-ism.

“This must be Mr. Sammy,” says Mrs. Buddington crouching down to say hi.

We walked into the room and Sammy and I got onto the bed thingie mobober in the room.

“So, I see Sammy is blind and deaf, wow I’m sorry. And you’re here to try hearing aids to see if he can start hearing maybe even a little bit?” Mrs. Buddington said to Mom.

Mom shook her head up and down for yes, but I shook my head side to side saying no. If he can hear then they won’t need me and then I’ll go to someone else and I’ve grown such an attachment to him. Then I realize that he is still blind. Maybe I shouldn’t be happy that he is blind but for now I am cause that means that Sammy still needs me near him at all times.

The doctor leaves the room to go get the hearing aids and mom walks over to us. She rubs my back and squeezes onto Sammy’s hand. It takes the doctor a while to come back so Mom reads the news. I’ve never thought about this, but I don’t even know the time I’m living in. I look to find today's date on the magazine and see that it says January 27, 2020.

Mrs. Buddington comes back later with the hearing aids. She puts them in his ears and turns them on. Once again, like I said rarely does Sammy talk but today he did.

“Say something mom.” Sammy tells Mom.

“Oh, okay, umm, hi there.”

“I can hear you! I mean things sound low and kinda fuzzy like, but you just said hi there!”

Mom is crying of joy, Sammy is crying of joy, I’m barking of joy and Mrs. Buddington is standing in the corner smiling letting us have our moment. Sammy keeps them in after we’ve all gone crazy and I want him to hear my voice. He bends down to pet me and I bark as loud as I can in his ear. He stumbles back which is a good thing cause he heard me. Sammy looks confused but then understood, “Oh my gosh Alex I can hear you, keep barking!”

So, I keep barking all the way home and mom plays music and we talk, and Sammy participates the most at talking during dinner.

I love the weekend. We all sleep in. Being a guide dog takes a lot of work and brain power so I always take advantage of sleep and rest time. Today I wake up late but I’m always the first one up. I sleep in Sammy’s room on his floor. I get up, stretch and look on the bed to find no Sammy. Kinda weird but I’m a growing dog that needs his sleep. I go up to the door to open it but its locked. I’m so confused so I start to bark, a lot. Soon enough I hear Mom’s voice.

“We were letting you sleep in little buddy,” Mom says as she leads me out. The food smells good. Not like human food good but like dog food good. I look up to see a huge sign in the kitchen. I don’t know what it says but by the look on their face they are happy so I’m happy.

They start to sing happy birthday to me which means, “Yay you are getting older. You were born on this date so it makes you special but there are others who share your same birthday so your not that special.” I don’t know why I think so realistically but right now I could care less. I eat the new dog food and then they give me a donut.

My first birthday celebrated with them. The rest of the day was a normal weekend day but if this is any indication on how the rest of my birthdays will go, I’m excited to get older.

Something big is happening today. Yes again. Sammy is dressed in a polo shirt and pants with sneakers and nicely combed hair. Most days he doesn’t go all out on his look. Mom gives him a lunch. A lunch? Vacation?

“It’s your first day of school Sammy.”

“Thanks, mom!”

Now I can’t tell time but its way earlier than usual. 7:00 am apparently.We get in the car and drive for such a long time I accidentally fall asleep, in a car, with the windows down, never happens.

“Why is school so far away,” asks Sammy

“It’s the closest one. It was only 45 minutes so it could have been worse. Plus your finally at a real school so be happy. Alex, you get to stay at school with him for the whole day without me.”

They go in a room and I fall asleep. It’s not like I need to know this and sleeping is my favorite hobby. Sammy shakes me to wake me up and says it’s time for lunch.

At lunch Mom has packed chicken nuggets from Chick-fil-A. Sammy has never had any friends that really understood the trouble he had to go through every single day, until now.

“Hi my name is Samuel but most people call me Sammy. This is my guide dog Alex, I’m deaf, but I wear hearing aids so I can mostly hear and I am blind.” The whole class clapped as Sammy sat down. Everyone else went, everyone had a guide dog, everyone here was blind.

“Hey your Sammy right?”

I look up to see a little boy.

“Yeah, what's your name.”

“My name is Pablo and my guide dogs name is Alexa. Do you want to hang out after school some time, maybe over the weekend?”

“Sure.”

Chapter 7

There was a knock on the door this weekend. It was Pablo and Alexa. Both the boys had snack and juice at the table. Me and Alexa got to hang out. We played tug-a-war, wrestled with each other then layed down. We also had a nice chat, most humans think that we bark to communicate but we just do that to show affection. We actually talk kinda like telepathy is the only way I can think of it, I don’t know but it’s nice cause our conversations no one can listen in on.

“I’m 3, how old are you?”

“I’m 4.”

“Cool, well its my nap time.”

I went to sleep. When I woke up Pablo and Alexis were leaving. Sammy was smiling for having a real friend for the first time.

“Happy birthday!”

Years have past since we first met Pablo and Alexis. Sammy, or Sam  as he likes to be called now is turning 12. That means I’m 7. I’m starting to get old, I might have to retire soon but I won’t give up just yet. Sam has new friends, there is Pablo, Max, and Dan, their guide dogs name’s are Cookie, Manny and Alexa.

One of Sam’s birthday card was a lottery ticket, the mega million. I don’t understand, how could the world have so much poverty, homelessness and third world countries yet the government can give people hundreds of millions of dollars for guessing numbers. Sam chose 12, 7, and 48, for his age, my age, and Mom’s age.

They turn it in and wait.

Five weeks later we get a call. Mom answers the phone and starts screaming, Sam enters the room and I barking.

“Thank you so much!” Mom turns to us and says, “We won. We won the lottery. We won 125 million dollars!”

None of us knew what to do, that was so much money. We sat down and decided some will go to college funds. Some will go for vacation or just for spending money, some for medical stuff and the last 25 million will go to different charities.

We open the door to a charity trying to solve cancer, we give them 5 million. Everyone loved Sam, his happy energy in a world for him thats dark, quite literally. The next was one for blindness, helping the homeless, helping lower income and helping a charity clean the world. We felt like we really did something that day. We went home and all took a nap.

Sam is now 17 and I’m 12. I’m really old but I am still this guide dog. There is still many things a regular 17 year old can do that Sam can’t, like riding a bike, driving a car or just walking without me. Sam did join a band and plays the piano since it’s mainly muscle memory, he has many friends now, still friends with Pablo. Today we get back from band and I take a nap. I’m starting to take naps more and more. Mom started going to college to get a degree in engineering since she can now afford it thanks to the lottery we won all those years ago.

Mom is home today and she is watching TV. When I wake up from my nap and seems like another miracle has happened to us, again. I look at the news and see a photo of a contact for the eyes.

“And you can see here how they work. There is a little chip in both eye contacts that, when you put it on are basically invisible when you put them on. Oh, and while they are contacts and you need to put eye contact in them, you never have to take them out. You’ll soon forget that you even have them in, but of course don’t forget. And they’re waterproof. Here over to the scientist to help you understand what these are.”

“Thanks. So these contacts are for blind people. The chip…”

He says some big words that I don’t really care about to show how they work. I’m excited that Sam will be able to see when he gets these.

“We have been waiting to show to make sure they work correctly. They are being created as we speak. There are 100 pairs that work absolutely fine coming in at 60 million dollars. There will be a convention where everyone can look and if you want, buy.”

We all go silent. That’s a lot of money, but it’s not like we don’t have it. They will just have to take it out of their savings.

“We’re getting them,” Mom says.

That weekend we drive for 19 hours. They sing, I stick my head out of the window and let my tongue dangle. We go to a hotel room and sleep.

We wake up to Mom’s alarm and they get dressed. We go down to the convention.

“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome all. In this building you will see the contacts. You have to be checked when you enter and leave, for safety reasons. I hope you enjoy the product that took me and my scientists years to perfect.”

There are metal detectors and you have to take everything out of pockets and purses. I go through and nothing happens. It’s a weird fear that it seems everyone has. You know that you don’t have any weapons or metal on you yet you worry so much that the people will find something on you.

Sam, Mom and I go over to look at them. I don’t even see the chip but Mom does because she points then looks really close there. We walk over to the stand where we can buy them.

“We would like to buy a pair.”

“Ok.”

Mom goes through her purse and pulls out a check for 60 million dollars. The person checks make sure its real and goes to the back where only employees are allowed to go. He come back out and gives Mom a pair.

“Enjoy.”

We spend the day there then go home for another 19 hour drive and sleep. In the morning Sam will see for the first time.

We all woke up pretty early for the big day. It’s getting harder for me to walk and it’s starting to show. We open the case to find two perfect contacts and a small bottle of contact lense cleaner. Sam put them in then put two drops of cleaner on his eyes. The world went silent for a few minutes

“Well, does it work,” asked Mom

“Yes!” “You are wearing a yellow t-shirt and denim jeans. And Alex, your collar is a bone and red. And our house, I mean it’s not that colorful but I can see and I love colors!”

Mom burst down into tears, I burst down into barks and Sam, my little Sammy broke down into tears with Mom.

That night we had a picnic in the park. For the first time since I have met Sam he didn't need me. He didn’t put on my guide dog thing on my back, he used a regular leash, and mom walked me. Sam walked on his own like every other human. We sat down and had pasta, yes they let me eat pasta tonight. Sam was talking about the world and he must’ve looked crazy to everyone, staring at the sky, the trees, the everything. At sunset we all got up and watched as it set. Sam talked about the orange, the yellow, the shape of the sun, I’ve never seen Sam talk so much.

The next day Mom comes into Sam’s room and says, “you’re taking your drivers test today! I already got a car for you and put in the down payment. I know you know so much because this has been a dream, you’re gonna ace it!”

We got up and went over the the drivers test place. Mom did have to tell him about the hearing aids and the contacts. Sam got into his new car and started to drive. When Sam got back he sat near me while mom walked into another room with the test driver. Mom walks out and yells that Sam passed the test. We go over and Sam takes his photo for the drivers test.

Sam has been living his best life, I’ve been living my worst. He has a girlfriend, joined the football team and is applying to colleges now. He is still friends with Pablo, and everyone else who is blind but I’ve noticed they are growing apart. Sam is different now, yes he knows the struggles because he has lived through them, but he doesn’t face them anymore. He tries to still be his old self and help them but they just don’t have the connection they had a few years ago.

Sam is 20 now and I’m 15 so I know I’m gonna die soon. I sleep all day, retired from a guide dog position, I try to play fetch but I can’t run and get too tired to fast. Sam helps me do stuff now, how the tables have turned, he is my guide dog now. I wake up more hurt every day. I can barely eat. I know death is just around the corner. It is the only thing on my mind anymore. Sam is fine, I don’t need to worry about him, for the first time I have to worry about myself.

One morning is worse than the rest. I don’t do anything the whole day. I hear a ring on the door. I try to get up but I can’t, I try to bark but it comes out as a weak squeal. I can smell her. She is the vet. I am going to die today.

Mom comes near me ad gently pets my back. “I don’t know how to repay you for everything you have done. You practically saved my boys life. When I didn’t have you, he was sad. He didn’t have a dad which didn’t make it any easier. He never went out of the house. When I told him you were coming he immediately became happier. Then you came and my life changed. He was happy for the first time so I was happy. Neither of us could’ve survived if it wasn’t for you.”

Sammy sits next to me. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. You have helped me feel human went I felt like I wasn’t. You helped me survive. If it wasn’t for you I would be inside the whole time doing nothing. I wouldn’t have gone to school, make friends or be happy without you. I would be to scared to walk without you. My mom would be suffering so much more if you weren’t here. You have helped me so much, but I think you helped her survive this more than me. My life is messed up, but somehow you keep it together. You have served your purpose in life. You helped me and I’m going to pay it forward. I will think of you every day. You can rest peacefully now. Don’t be scared. You are free of me now. Live your life to the fullest. You aren’t bound by me anymore. I will see you soon friend.”

Now it is my turn. I bark and I bark, they may not speak the same language but I know that they know in their hearts what I’m saying. “I was trained to do this. I thought this would be hard work and not fun. Yes it was work but you guys made it fun. I was ecstatic whenever you were smiling. I’m so happy you included me as an addition to your family. Helping was my purpose. I have helped and I am ready. I am ready for whatever comes next, even if that’s sleeping. Thank you Mom, thank you my little Sammy.”

I start to close my eyes. I see Sam. But it’s in the future. He is with a child, a girl. There is a dog that looks like me. Now it’s night. He is sitting in his room and thinking about me. He is always thinking about me. Then its black.

The afterlife. I am sleeping. I don’t know how long because you can’t keep track of time but one day I wake up. The first thing I see is Sam.

“Are you dead now too, Sammy.”

“Yes. I’ve died of old age, but I’m in the age of my best life, which is 19. I don’t know, I guess I woke you up. I’ve been staring at you for a couple years I think.”

I stand up. I feel just like my young self. My bark is bold and I could play at the park forever. We are in a park now. We play fetch forever. Then we get food, the pasta we had the night of the picnic. It is the best time ever, I never get tired.

“I have to leave now. Something is pulling me away. Stay safe old friend. I love you.”

“Hi.”

I look up and see Mom. We walk in the park just like the old days. Mom talks about Sam’s life and how lovely it was to watch him grow up. She too, died of natural causes. I ate the treats that Mom would give me at nights after Sammy went to bed.

“I need to leave now,” Mom also faded away.

I’m starting to get tired but I get a letter.

You don’t know me. I’m the father of your Sammy. I want to thank you. I was a bad person on Earth. I left Sam’s mother because I couldn’t take the fact that my son would be blind and deaf. She was strong, she helped him, and he led his life to the fullest. You were a major part. I can’t visit Sam or his mom but I was granted access to give you this note. Just know, that you also changed my life. I regretted my decision by leaving Sam but I couldn’t do anything about it. Thank you for all your help Alex.

Now I’m really tired. I go to sleep. I don’t think I’m going to get woken up again. Time for one final nap.