I Can Do This Tom

My best friend in the whole world, Linny, Born one pound, seven ounces, not expected to live, Linda, brought Linny home from relatives where she was to live her last days. I remember the night I knew that she would live. Way before the doctors said it. I use to take the dogs out hunting in the industrial parks of San Diego and they would kill rats. The parks were over run with them. Owners of industrial parks would ask me to hunt their buildings. When I'd get off at midnight or so I would drive home, open the door and Bishop and Chewey would race to my BMW to go hunting. One night Linny wanted to go. I said "You're too little." She said "I can do this Tom, I can do this.

When I opened the door at the industrial park the dogs shot out the door and into the bushes with Linny right behind them. I spent the whole night until 3 or 4am trying to stop Linny from following the dogs everywhere they went. When I loaded up the car with essentially three dogs, I was exhausted.

I put Linny in her room and went in and woke Linda up. I said "Linny's not going to die." Linda, still mostly asleep said "What?" I said Linny's not going to die. Her heart is so big it doesn't fit in her chest. She's not going to die." I went in her room to make sure she'd gone to bed and she was jumping up and down on her bed, with her fists doubled up in front of her. She said "Tom you want a piece of me?" I said "No." She said "You want a piece of this." I said "No." She said "I'll fight you with one hand tied behind my back." I said "Linny, quit watching the Wizard of Oz and go to bed." Then I closed the door.

Then the day came I had to tell my best friend I bought a lodge in Moab and I was moving. I would miss her a lot. She said "I know Tom. I'm going with you." I said "I can't take a three year old out there." She said "Tom my bags are in your car and so is my car seat. I'm going Tom. I can do this." I knew she could so we headed out. Linda said when she calls I'll come get her. Sixteen years later, she never called. There were times she went to San Diego with Linda or to Salt Lake with her mom and brothers and sisters but when she wasn't required somewhere else she came back here.

Then last year I saw a storm coming over Dead Horse Point, a bad one. I called everyone on the walkie talkies to get back to the lodge in the next 15 minutes or you wouldn't be getting back at all. All the guests made it, Teresa made it, Linny did not. She was escorting people over Hurrah Pass and when she got my call she was at the top of Hurrah. Part way down the hail came and no matter how fast the wipers went the hail was faster. Linny hit some rocks on the side of the road and the truck was crashed. She called to say she was going to make a run for the Base Camp sign. When she got there it was a giant flood. Linny tried to sneak around the corner but the flood got her. She held the walkie up while she was getting swept down the driveway and we could hear her coming up for air. She grabbed the gate as she went by and pulled herself up out of the raging water. I got in the truck and headed down the hill to get in the driveway and go get her but the raging waters almost took me to the river and we got out just in time. Teresa and I headed up the hill and Linny from the other side where we met at the top. The next few days she tried to walk and even move but she was beat up pretty bad. After 16 plus years she made the call and Linda came to get her to rehab in San Diego.

Today my best friend turned 20. One pound and seven ounces didn't get her and neither did Mother Nature's repeated attempts even with all the years Linny lived here. At 20, Linny is an old soul, way beyond her years, all the rescues we did from the time she was four years old and being rescued occasionally. Life was not always easy here. She went through a lot, endured it, learned from it, and in the end turned out to be right. She knew at three years old. "I can do this Tom. I can do this."