Theresa Lewis

Sasha’s journey ends and Misty goes on alone

Normally when my husband and I went on vacation trips, we left our dogs at home because my dad was home and we could always find someone to walk the dogs each day.

A year after my dad passed away, we also lost Sasha due to complications from cancer surgery. All we had left was Misty. Misty mourned the loss of Sasha so much so that she lost interest in life. She became quiet… too quiet. She rarely ever barked and she would spend countless hours looking out the window, waiting for Sasha to come home. When we took her for a walk, she would always be searching for Sasha. I tried to explain to her that Sasha was sick and had to leave us, but I knew in my heart that Misty didn’t grasp the fact that Sasha was gone for good.

After about five months of Misty moping around, I thought that perhaps she too was sick so I brought her to the vet. The vet said that Misty was in good health, but she was still in mourning and that it would take time. We didn’t have the heart to leave her with strangers when we went on vacations. She loved riding in the car so much, but when we took her with us, I had the feeling that she was still looking for Sasha. Not wanting to give her that hope, we stopped taking her in the car for a while and we stopped going on vacations, but the vet said we should take her with us as much as possible.

I was glad that I went to see Misty’s vet because it meant that we all could travel again. She was such a great little traveller. She never gave us a moment of trouble.

On one of our trips to Prince Edward Island from Montreal, my husband decided to do the trip all in one day. It took us fourteen hours from our house to the ferry at Borden. This was before the Confederation Bridge was built.

I don’t know how my husband felt by the time we reached the ferry, but I can tell you that I was totally exhausted. I was stiff and sore from having been in the car for so many hours. When we arrived at the waiting line for the ferry, the previous ferry had just pulled out of the docks. We had to wait in the blistering heat for over two hours for the next ferry to arrive.

I was so parched that I couldn’t quench my thirst. If I thought I was miserable and uncomfortable from the heat while we waited on land, it was even hotter in the belly of the ferry where we parked the car. The fumes from the cars were suffocating. Once we left the lower parking deck, we took the stairs up to the top outside deck. Once the ferry was under way, the cold wind off the water made me shiver. I had to go inside. I told my husband that it was too windy and chilly for me outside and there was nowhere to sit out there. He said it didn’t bother him, so he was going to walk the dog around the deck. As a joke, I told him not to get lost.

Oh, my! …famous last words. Once we had crossed from New Brunswick over to Prince Edward Island, people were instructed to return to their cars. Knowing that my husband would soon be down in the parking area and would be as hot as I was down in the belly of the ferry, I bought him a large chocolate ice cream in a waffle cone. I waited and I waited, but he didn’t come. I was beginning to think that perhaps he and Misty had fallen overboard. People were starting their cars and the exhaust fumes were gagging me. There was nowhere for me to go. It felt like it was at least a hundred and fifty degrees down there. I had to stand there like an idiot while everyone else turned on their car air conditioners and drove off the ferry. Our car was the only car left. I was so anxious that I paced back and forth and I had a headache from hell.

I was melting from the heat down there and so was the ice cream I bought for my husband. I had eaten my own ice cream and now I was licking at his as the melting chocolate was running through my fingers, up my arm and dripping off my elbow. I didn’t know what to do. With my anxiety level mounting, I saw a young fellow who worked on the ferry and he asked me why I hadn’t got off. I told him I didn’t have the car keys and my husband and dog were missing. I was afraid that if I went to search for him, my husband would show up and then I would be missing. I was getting frantic.

I asked the young man if he would go and look for my husband and dog. In his laid back manner, he said not to panic because they would show up eventually. I said what if they started loading the return passenger vehicles and we got stuck in the middle of the row. Again he told me not to worry. He assured me that no vehicles would be loaded on until we were off the ferry.

Finally, my husband showed up almost half an hour after all the other cars had gone. He looked wild-eyed and was gasping for air. Misty also looked frazzled and was panting heavily. Both of them were covered in black grease. I asked him what happened, but he wouldn’t answer my question. He just told me to get in the car.

Once we were off the ferry, he found a place to park and gather his wits. He looked like he was about to burst into tears. He took what was left of the ice cream that now was nothing more than chocolate milk in a wet and mushy waffle cone. He just looked at it then gave it to Misty. She didn’t want it either, so I disposed of it.

Again I asked him what happened. When he got his wind back, he told me they got lost on the ferry and had come down the wrong side. He was trying to ride the escalator down, but Misty’s tail hair got caught in the mechanism of the escalator. She screamed and my husband flipped out. He and another man managed to free Misty’s tail …at least some of it. The rest was left stuck in the mechanism. The other man was shouting for someone to turn off the power to the escalator. Someone did. That meant that my husband had to walk from the belly of the ferry on the wrong side of the boat right up to the top deck again and then find the right stairs to go down. He had to carry Misty who weighed fifty pounds because he wasn’t taking any more chances of anything else happening to her.

It was quite a harrowing experience for all of us. I am happy to say that after that trip to Prince Edward Island, the Confederation Bridge was opened and that made the ocean crossing much more pleasant for all of us.

This is the final episode in the adventures of Misty and Sasha.

The End