Three Weeks - 1059

On this episode of The Thought Shower, Intern John talks about life without Chuy the last three weeks

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And a happy Wednesday friend. Welcome to the Thought Shower. Intern.
John is my name. Hopefully having a good week. It
has been, man, and I mean to keep being a downer.
I realized I might be coming across that way. It's been, uh,
you know, as far as my life is still, the
last three weeks without Chewy, it has been I'll don't

(00:23):
even know how to describe it, dude, it has just
been a mind f I guess you know. The folks
at the radio station got me this really cool Uh,
it's I don't know how to describe it. I think
it's called a three D crystal, but it's like a
hunk of glass and inside the glass there's a three

(00:44):
D etching of Chewy and it's something that I wanted
to get myself, and then, uh, it was gifted to
me by the folks at the radio station, and it's
very cool. I know the exact foe they got it from.
It was him sitting in the front seat of my car,
looking displeased with life as he often did. And you know,

(01:06):
it's one of those things where I have a bookshelf
now in my place with some of my favorite Chewy stuff,
and it has like the children's book and it has
the the Jordan's the shoes, and then it has his
remains and some other stuff. And for whatever reason, it
really isn't until I see the three D version of
him that it's like, oh, yeah, he's gone. And that's tough, obviously,

(01:32):
you know, it's it's a weird. I don't know. I'm
trying to. I've done a lot of thinking, obviously, and
I think, you know, I don't want to belittle other
folks relationships with their animals, because I know it's all special.
I was very lucky to have the situation with Chewy
that I did where we only had each other. You know,

(01:54):
when I moved to Des Moines, it was me and
Chewy for eleven months there, and I bring him to work,
course and bringing my boss chances house and he was
great there, but like ninety eight percent of the time
it was just me and him. I have any friends
in Des Moines, Like, I focused on work, bring him
to the station, and then of course, you know, moved
here and it took me probably two or three years.

(02:17):
I mean, my friend Dante's my first friend, made out
here to find like friends outside of work, and it
was really just me and him then as well. I
think not having like a living girlfriend and not having
a family, it was really me and him, and so
that type of relationship is I'll never be able to
have that again. I don't think, you know, he basically

(02:39):
lives sixteen years. Hopefully in the next sixteen years, I
have a family and that kind of stuff. So the
relationship we had, I don't Again, I don't mean to
be literally anybody's relationship with their pet, certainly. I just
don't know of many other folks who had that kind

(02:59):
of closeness, you know, so when I see the three
D version of him, it's tough. It's just I texted
Sauce today for being such a little dude, Like the
impact he had is crazy, you know, he just and
it was funny. I was I think I was talking

(03:20):
to my mom and uh, because I've gotten thousands of messages,
I mean thousands, might be close to one hundred thousand
messages legitimately, and it's been amazing. It's like, God, if
I could tell him how popular he was, he'd just
be like yeah, and and you know, so God, we

(03:42):
get him through it. Not much of my choice, right,
Gotta keep pushing, gotta keep pushing, but it's been difficult.
I don't think it's gotten any easier, that's for sure.
I think I don't know. It's like the moments come
where it's like, oh, he's not coming back. It's an

(04:02):
odd it's no odd thing. And again it's three weeks
on this past Tuesday, his birthday's coming up. Although I
will say this, with the cold coming in, I know,
I mean it was like single digit degrees here in
the DC area, and I was like, if I had
to take him outside, because here's the thing about Chewie Chewy. Again,

(04:27):
I loved him more than anything. He was the best dog,
but he also was very well aware of like how
posh his life could be. If I had to take
him outside right now in this single digital weather, he would,
first of all, he'd refuse to go. He would refuse
to go, so I'd have to pick him up and
set him down the grass. He would then look back
at me as if I was punishing him, and like

(04:49):
almost as if like I had control over turning off
the AC so to speak. And then I can never
prove this, of course, but in a moment of spite,
he would take his dear sweet time so that I'd
had to be cold with him because with Schewey, he's
so tiny. I would never let him go out by himself.
I would always try to like stand by him, stand

(05:10):
near him to make something happened. I know that's what
he would do. I know it. That's my boy. That's
just that's just who he is. Yeah, I want to
think too. I've gotten a lot of folks been sending
stuff to the radio station, which has been very nice.
It's it's just it's very not the word moving powerful
to see just how much he meant to so many people,

(05:32):
you know. Just yeah, I guess I don't know. It's
it's cool to see how much our love for each
other meant to people, too, if that makes sense. I
never imagine that. Yeah, I always knew that people liked him,
or at least thought he was cute, but he golly man,
think he broke more hearts than mine. So I don't

(05:54):
mean to be depressing. And you know, it's a weird
thing too, where I'm hoping that through this other folks
who are going through grief can see if they're not alone.
Maybe maybe that's part of it. I would also hope
too that I'm pretty good. I think at masking feelings
so that there's probably somebody in your life who is

(06:14):
going through something and they are really good hiding it.
Like listen, every day sucks. I'm not even gonna like
I've broken down every day the last three weeks multiple times.
It has not gotten better. Uh will it? I hope?
So I'm starting to remember the good stuff. And it's
been weird too, like I've been seeing, you know, while

(06:36):
I consider to be signs from him, certainly that's been
happening a lot. Golly had dream about him last night,
and this is the first time I had dream about
him forever. Reason. We're on an airplane, I believe airplane
or a bus that we're going somewhere. My brother Tommy
was holding him, and he dropped Chewy. To be fair,
one hundred percent, Chewy's fault. One hundred percent is fault.

(06:57):
I think he was trying to jump off, but he
like misses balance and and of course like he would
follow dramatically, so everybody was like oh. And then instead
of walking back to us, he walked up like four
sections on the plane, turned around and just stared at us, like,
how dare you? How could you drop me? And that
was him, you know, that was uh, that was him
for sure. I posted a video. I think I mentioned

(07:19):
this too. I was in West Virginia a couple of
years ago. But Chewie would always uh pretend that he
couldn't get on furniture. If he saw you sitting down
on a couch, he come over and gave you the
most pitiful cry, as if like, no, please, sir, help
help this young boy up. But the amount of times
I would come home and he would be on the
furniture by himself, as if an angel lifted him up

(07:41):
to the heavens. But at this one time in West
Virginia the cabin, I was saying, I had two couches
right across from each other, and so it's funny because
I have the video. But cheweye uh he cried for
me put him on the couch with me, so I did.
He didn't decide he wanted to get out, so he
jumped off, walked to the other couch across the room,
hopped on that couch find himself. While I pull out

(08:03):
the camera to take a video, he hops off that couch,
walks back to me and starts crying that was my boy.
I don't know where he got the attention seeking behavior from,
but that was him. So that's been you know, the
last three weeks just been flooded with so much so
my memories. I mean again like basically sixteen years of
memories and it's all me and him. It's a lot

(08:27):
of good stuff, I would say, aside from that last
you know, several hours in the hotel room, all really
good memories, which I guess too. I've been trying to
say this to pet folks too. I mentioned this on
the show What did the Announcement. I'm very lucky that

(08:47):
I have no regrets with him, that I did everything
I could for him with the vet. You know, he
had a heart murmur so he couldn't have food with
lentils in it. So we did that for a little bit.
Then it was he stopped eating that food. So started
making him ground beef. Then he didn't like that, make
ground chicken. Then it was like retissory chicken with like

(09:09):
a bone broth and stuff. So I'm very lucky that
I can look back and go like I did everything
I could health wise with him, but also too, and
I encourage you to do this, like I made him
my life everywhere I went. Che we went with me
to the point where, like you know, I would meet
people and they'd ask where he was. Well, yeah, I

(09:33):
could be like ice skating, where's Shoey? Well he's not here.
He's probably a home, you know what I mean. I
think the amount of times I'd be out in public
with him and people be like, oh, is that Chewy?
But yeah, I'm here too, you know what I mean.
But he just had that. Man, he had that that
kind of the aura about him, and he was definitely

(09:54):
aware of it. So listen, I know you want to
be entertained and be I'm sorry, I can't do that
like I used to. That's not dark Jesus. I'm still
figuring it out, and it's you know, it's gonna be
a long time. It just is, which I guess. It

(10:17):
be hard to be as close as we were for
as long as we were and not have it have
such an impact on me. I'm walking with my friends,
my family, and you like again, like the amount of
messages and kids who are reaching out. Man, that's been amazing.
It's he has a special boy. He's a special boy,

(10:37):
and I was beyond blessed to have him so if
you have a pet scratches please for me and Chewie.
I'll see you Friday.