Brady's Bunch

It was the tail end of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady's record-setting 2006-07 season, where he seemed to have achieved some kind of telepathic link with wide receiver Randy Moss. League records were toppling faster than they could be set, so in the sports-loving Cook household, "Brady" was without question the name of the hour.

Which is why, when a 6 lb crate arrived first class at Logan Airport hours before a blizzard descended on the region in February 2007, there was only one name in mind for the fluffy white creature whose nose poked out of the shredded newspaper bedding at us.

I was in the 8th grade at that time - gangly, translucent, my cusp-adolescence phase in full swing. Amazing as it is for me to consider now, I hadn't had much contact with dogs at that point in my life - hardly any, as a matter of fact, to the point where I was almost skittish around them. The moment this Oklahoma-born fur-ball made his first tentative steps on our home kitchen tiles, however, all that unfamiliarity just vanished without a trace, and my life for the past thirteen years has been incomparably better for it.

I sit here writing to you now, though, feeling that unfamiliarity again for the first time in all those years. I'm stunned, and trying to process. Writing is how I do that, so here we are.

The Cook family had to say goodbye to our best friend last night. Our hearts are shattered.

The cotton ball ear-swab with legs that was Brady as we first got to know him, in puppy form

You've heard about it. It's covered ground. It's not a fresh take.  I don't care. If you're lucky enough, hopefully you'll know what I'm trying to get at, because a master's degree in writing isn't good enough here to provide me with the language to describe the friendship these beings bring to our lives. Sweet, unselfish, and faithful, faithful, faithful, Brady stopped being thought of as a "pet" or anything like it from the moment his puppy barks were first heard in our kitchen. He was, and will remain, a core, central part of the Cook family unit, no matter where it roams and spreads to in the future.

At the end, he passed, of all things, from a heart that was almost doubly large normal size, and the fitting poetry of that almost insults me. He really was all heart. He looked at you (you've got dozens of examples below that I won't apologize for including to excess), and in that expression was - sincerity? love? unmatched genuine-ness? contentedness? the unshakable feeling that he, a dog, comprehended and understood whatever it was you said to him better than most people could? I'm grasping here, trying to find the right description of Brady's personality, and adjectives are falling short in the same way that a puddle falls short of the ocean.

He was a lot of things to the Cooks - everything, in some ways - but the best I can do here is to include some of those things in picture form, and hope it imparts some minuscule sense of the unfailingly bright spot he was in our lives. Maybe, just maybe, we can follow some of his examples, and be all the better for it.

MASCOT

Not surprisingly for a family that named their dog after a quarterback, the Cooks are all about sports, whether watching or playing them. Brady was on-hand for both situations. He sniffed his way through countless cross country races or field hockey games, but his preference was definitely tailgating at home for Stanley Cups or World Series - because tailgates mean food, and food means plenty of chances for sharing. If that meant other people came over, the more the merrier, because visitors meant fresh and unsuspecting victims for begging.

In an ironic twist, his least favorite sport to be around for was probably football, because whenever his namesake made a mistake on the field and the room erupted in angry cries of "COME ON, BRADY!" it was always hard to clear up the confusion.

FASHION ICON
(This section largely falls under the category of "things Andrew had no involvement in or knowledge of until after the fact")

Whether it was hats... 

... sombreros...

... Shakespearean neck ruffles...

... or just a pair of sunglasses, Brady was a dog of many looks. And he was adorable in every single one of them.

PHYSICAL TRAINER

We attribute Brady's long and very healthy thirteen years to the fact that, literally right up to the last day, he was an incredibly active dog. He went for multiple walks a day, (usually one early in the morning and one after work or around dinnertime) and could have been a world-champion fetch player. One of my proudest and greatest accomplishments so far on this Earth is that I was usually his go-to fetch partner; it was a highlight of many, many a day for me, let alone him.

 As seen here, though, Brady didn't stop his exercise involvement with fetch games. Whether in a (literal) support role for stretching after runs -

- or with more hands-on approach for weighted squats, Brady was deeply invested in everyone's health and fitness. 

Especially if that meant time for chin-scratches between reps.

HOME BODY

Without a single shred of doubt, Brady's favorite place in the entire world was within the four walls of his own home. Car rides were hit or miss (made better if they included fast food "magic windows" that handed cheeseburgers right to you), walks in the park were fine and good, but nothing made Brady's day more than a soft blanket and room to stretch on his couch. The quarantine lifestyle suited him just fine.

For 22 lbs, he was also able to occupy a surprisingly incredible amount of cushion space all by himself.

His happiest dreams included cheese pizzas and the horrible demise of mailmen (more on that later)

And he definitely appreciated the comfort of a friend to fall asleep with.

Once he could be bothered to move to a new position and yawn himself awake, Brady himself probably took greatest pride in his role as 

PROTECTOR

If tributary plaques were scattered around the Cook household, the one under our large front picture window would read "Brady's Spot." This was his perch; his crow's nest; his eye in the sky upon the world outside, which he guarded with never-failing vigilance.

A literally uncountable number of joggers, bicyclists, dog-walkers, and cars were greeted on their way up our street over the last thirteen years by this fearsome sentinel, whose steely gaze surveyed all in his domain. Notice the one paw draped over the side of his perch, panther-like. A masterclass in intimidation.

Again, the definition of loyalty, Brady would remain in this perch for hours on end when one of his flock was away at work or school, patiently waiting for their return. Seeing a car pull into the driveway, he would then leap down to the carpet and sprint to the door. A better or more faithful greeting party, a body could never hope to find.

However, on the other side of that coin, a fiercer defender you could never encounter, and no one clashed with Brady in this regard like the dreaded mailman. Starting at puppy-age and never once taking a day off, Brady would always be woken from a peaceful sleep by the distinctive engine of the mail truck tck-tck-tcking to life around around the corner. He would scramble to his vantage point in the window, spot his prey, and proceed to come UNGLUED as the mailman - who, I should mention, is actually a very nice gentleman - returned, day after day and year after year, to "invade" our home territory. Diving from his perch to the mail slot, he would then catch whatever the post was delivering that day as it fell from the slot to the floor, and either violently shred it to pieces or hide it behind living room furniture.

We stopped displaying Christmas cards we received because of puncture marks through loved ones' faces; when Heather and I were expecting college admission packets, we had to meet the mailman on the walkway for fear of  acceptance letters being hidden or destroyed. Mail deliveries are about to become a lot more uneventful, and my heart is broken.

BEST FRIEND

The scope of this hasn't hit me yet, and I doubt it will for quite a while. Moved into a place of my own now, it's going to take me a very, very long time to return back and not expect a 22 lb muppet to come barreling down the hallway at me whenever I visit. How could I? When we met, I had braces, asthma, and a raging hatred of middle school; half a lifetime later, I had planned to google "dog bowties" for an appearance at my wedding (my opinion on middle school hasn't changed, though).

Brade - my cheese connoisseur, my nap partner, my co-pilot, the Chewie to my Han - I'm going to miss you, bud. A lot. A whole lot. You were a perfect, beautiful soul that it's been one of the privileges of my life to grow up alongside. I cannot state this strongly enough... I would not be the person I am today without you. No sunset walk and no ice cream cup will go by without a thought in your honor. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being such a  source of joy in our world. 

Rest easy, pal. You've earned all the cheese and chin scratches the universe could give. Keep a watchful eye over us from your brand new and improved perch. We'll see you later.