A Tribute To Our Pal "Tucker"

Well, today was a very sad day in the Head house hold, we found out our sweet Tucker-Man had passed away. It was such an unfortunate chain of events that were completely out of mine and Adam's control, we have to keep reminding ourselves of that with the waves of questions from the boys and floods of memories in our own minds.

Last night we were having a terrible thunderstorm with lightening and loud claps of thunder, and if you've spent any time with us during a bad storm you know our dog has severe storm anxiety so we let him into the garage to sleep. Around midnight our electricity started going on and off then randomly both of our garage doors came up (on there own). Adam went down to check on it and found Tucker had run off. That's when it all started...our neighbor called my cel phone because that's the number on his tag to say he was out running (in the rain and lightening), for some reason she didn't hold onto him! Adam quickly got dressed and started calling for him to no avail. After 45 minutes to an hour he came home with no Tucker-Man. We woke up this morning, I made signs and took 20 to all the stop signs around our neighborhood, I was almost finished getting them out when I got the phone call, "Ma'am, I think your black lab with a blue collar may be on the side of Shades Crest Road." Unbelievable...I was stunned. Then my phone started ringing again and it was yet another person relaying the same message. I immediately called Adam and told him the news...he came home and took care of picking him up and burying him.

I've cried off and on all day, it seems silly but when an animal walks through life with you, you kind of get attached I guess. It honestly surprises me how emotional I've been since I wouldn't consider myself much of an "animal lover"...but Tuck was a good dog! He obeyed on most occasions, and except for the few times he's run off and had to be tracked down, he was easy! He loved our boys and would let them hang and love on him!

Tucker's been apart of our family since Peyton was 6 weeks old, when we lived at Fort Benning, GA. He would run around Post with Adam in the mornings and play with our neighbors dog, Dixie. That's where we took him to a pond for the first time to let him swim and he acted so afraid of the water...we were like "what is wrong with this dog?"...turns out that alligators lived in the pond, which is a good reason not to want to get in...but he also wasn't a huge fan of water, which confirmed what we already knew, that he wasn't all Lab!! Here, he did get in water to cool off in a tiny baby pool...but it was a hot Georgia day!


He grew along with Peyton, then he followed us to Little Rock and befriended both our boys! He even got to enjoy a beautiful Arkansas snow!




He finally followed us to Birmingham and had a life of ease, taking runs with Adam in the morning and walks in the evening with our family...he had balls to play with and bones to chew...honestly, life for Tuck was easy, and unfortunately cut short!!


It's been a good life lesson for all of us: first, that we must live each day to glorify God, because we don't know when our time will be up and we'll have to give an account of how we've lived on Earth, but secondly that we must make the most of each moment of every day because we are definately NOT guaranteed tomorrow! It's been difficult to explain the finality of death to Peyton because he has many many questions, but we're facing them head on.

We are grateful to have had such a loving dog! "Tucker, we will miss you!"
There is Peyton with his dog, Tucker!!