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Joshua and Duke
Forever Guiding You
As warmth o' the sun blazes
Upon us amid oft' clouded sky,
A voice is softly whisp'rin'
Guidance intended for you and I.
If we listen carefully
The gentle sounds shall surely be heard,
Flyin' forth upon the wings
O' the peacefully impeccant bird.
A lad and belov'd canine
Shall escort us along our pathway,
For they've much to share with us,
And we must listen to what they say.
Lend an ear to Joshua
As you heed Duke's carefree bark,
Together they shall gently guide you
Into the light and away from the dark.
©2009 Ruth Cox
This website is created as a memorial to Josh's life, as well as being an informational site for families touched by Glycogen Storage Disease. The website is a work in progress, so do check back on occasion for updates and additions.
If you have a memory of Josh or thoughts you'd like to share here, please send an email to the address(s) below and we'll consider adding it to the page.
blackberrylily@hughes.net ~or~ dianna59@suddenlink.net
Join us in the celebration of Joshua’s life. We will share his journey throughout these pages. Please sign the guest book and share any memory or story.
Becky Thanks YOU - link to appreciation news
Duke's Story
“Is he still alive?” I asked, holding my breath as I awaited his answer.
“Yes!” Joshua said excitedly. “He’s still breathing.”
His beloved pup, Duke, had made it through another day.
Joshua had no luck with pets. Although we lived a good distance from the road, he still had three dogs that had been struck and killed by cars over the years. He longed for a puppy that would be his friend forever.
And then one year at Thanksgiving, when Josh was 15, his grandpa let him pick a puppy from a litter his dog had recently had. Josh chose a chubby tiny bundle of fur and named him Poopon. Unfortunately, just two weeks after bringing Poopon home, Joshua put him outside for a few minutes and when he went back to get him, Poopon was gone.
I could hear him calling and calling, and then everything got quiet. I figured he’d found the pup and all would be fine, but the next second, Joshua was running in the house, sobbing that his pup was dead.
Stunned, I took the dripping Poopon from Joshua’s hands.
“Where did you find him?” I asked.
“In the pond,” said Josh.
“But it’s only a few inches deep!”
Still, I had the limp proof of the pup’s drowning right there in my hands.
I wrapped the pup in a towel, then jugged Josh and told him how sorry I was. We cried together.
The next day, I allowed Joshua to stay home from school to build the pup a coffin and then bury him. He cried the whole day and said he felt no one understood.
But Joshua’s grandpa understood the grief, and felt so bad for him that he arranged to get Poopon’s brother back from the woman he had given him to. This pup looked almost identical to the one that had died. But he wasn’t even with us four days when he began to get sick.
The pup had such severe diarrhea and vomiting that we took him to the vet, where he tested negative for Parvo. We were told it was worms. The vet kept him for two nights and told us she did all she could. We brought home and he died during the night.
We were stunned. It seemed incredible to us that our poor kid couldn’t seem to have a pet for long, especially when he was so attentive to the pet and its needs. I was desperate to find him just the right dog. Ever since Joshua had read Where The Red Fern Grows, he’d wanted a redbone coon hound, but the breed was hard to find, especially in our area. I searched all over the state on the internet before giving up. There were no red bone pups to be found.
One evening shortly after Christmas, Joshua and I were talking when the phone rang. It was a man from Virginia who said he’d heard I was looking for a red bone pup. I told him yes, we were, but when he told me how far away he was, I felt my heart sink. There was no way we could drive that far for a dog. He offered to meet us half way.
On New Year’s Eve, Joshua got his beloved red bone. He loved this new friend the instant they met, and he prayed nothing would happen.
Our boy and his dog became the best of friends. The pup slept with Josh and adored his master. But tragedy struck once again. My husband was at work and Joshua was at school when I realized the pup had stayed in Josh’s room the whole day.
When Joshua got home, he went to check on his pup.
“I should’ve known. I’ll never have a puppy. This one’s sick, just like Poopon. Exactly the same.”
My cousin Connie, a dog lover, came over and took Josh, the pup and me to the vet. The instant this vet looked at our pup, he said it was Parvo. We told him we’d just had another puppy tested at the same hospital and the test had been negative. He told us that happens sometimes. Had we known the previous pup died from the highly contagious Parvo virus, there were precautions we could’ve taken to protect this new pup, but we’d thought it was worms.
The vet gave us a prescription for diarrhea and told us to take our pup home and keep him hydrated, though he told us that the dog’s chances weren’t good.
Joshua was crushed. As I’ve asked so many times in his life of struggle, why could nothing go right for my son? Was it too much to ask that he simply have a healthy puppy?
Joshua missed the rest of the week of school so he could stay home and take care of Duke, frequently dripping Gatorade and water into the pup’s mouth. Instead of constant diarrhea, the dog managed to have one explosive bloody bowel movement a day. I think this is how he survived. It took exactly ten days of constant attention, but Josh’s frail and skinny pup lived.
Still, there was the worry about the road, where we’d lost other dogs. As Duke grew, he loved to hunt and run in the woods, and we were all afraid that one day, he wouldn’t come back. But Duke seemed smarter about the things that had taken the lives of other pets, and we began to relax. Duke seemed to be with us to stay.
Duke was a few months past his third birthday when he disappeared. We searched everywhere and called everyone we could think of, but no trace of Duke was ever found. Our sweet and laid-back redbone had vanished.
Our gentle son, who just wanted a pet of his own, was heartbroken.
“I never want another dog,” Josh told us. “It hurts too bad.”
But my friend Wilma came across a litter of redbones not far from us, and she got one for Josh as a surprise. With tears in his eyes, he thanked her profusely for bringing him a new pup, but I noticed he seemed reluctant to bond with yet another dog.
It didn’t take the Blayn the pup long to win him over. Soon, the long-legged, clumsy dog and the gentle giant of a boy were inseparable.
And then it was over. This time, it was Joshua who left. He was only 19 when he died.
It’s just Blayn and me now, grieving together, missing our boy. Angry at life for being so cruel. Trying hard to take comfort in what blessings I can sift out of the many tragedies our family has endured. And wondering if perhaps Joshua lost so many pets here so he’d have them to keep him company in heaven.
"A Butterfly lights beside us like a sunbeam and for a brief moment it's glory and beauty belong to our world. But then it flies on again, and though we wish it could stay, we feel lucky to have seen it at all."
~Sascha Wagner
Becky's favorite quote!
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