Grizzly's Demise

This is a funny story yet painfully sad. Parental discretion is advised.

     It was a hot summer day in July. The deep south Robertsdale, Alabama was even hotter. My sister Sandy and I had gone there to visit my oldest sister Jeannie. As it happened Jeannie was sad as someone in her life had just died so she was quite tearful. We were doing all we could to cheer her up and make her smile.
     Jeannie is a gardener of sorts and always has the most beautiful flowers blooming throughout the yard.
She lived in a two story house and had a heavy wooden swing on the porch and this was our favorite place to visit. You could sit out there any time day or night and see something beautiful. Butterflies fluttered by, birds chirped, and chickens clucked. A cup of hot coffee was always welcome in the quiet country setting.
We sat and passed away hours reminiscing about happy times.
      Jeannie went inside and her giant black dog grizzly bounded around the house. Grizzly was one of many animals because Jeannie loved dogs, cats and birds, in fact when we would occasionally grow tired of our animals, not to worry she would gladly take them. Grizzly had belonged to my daughter Julie. Julie moved and could not have a dog so Aunt Jeannie inherited him. Grizzly had a thick coat of long hair and he smelled, well! he smelled like a long haired hot dog.
     We were standing out on the porch looking at the great outdoors when Grizzly bounded down the little dirt road to Jeannie's house and across the street. Jeannie walked out at about that time and I said to her, "You better call Grizzly, He is across the street." In a loud anxious voice she called " Here Grizzly, come on boy, Here Grizzly"  As we watched in horror Grizzly bounded back across the street. SCREECH, THUD,THUMP  and OH NO!  Yep you guessed it Grizzly gave up the ghost.

       We ran to the street with Jeannie getting there first. She picked him up and started carrying the 115 pound dog home. When we reached her we assisted her as she was hysterical with crocodile tears streaming down her face. She was so pitiful. We finally got home  and she informed us that we have to bury him. Jeannie lives on a farm with a pond and she picked out the most perfect spot overlooking the pond for him to be laid to rest. We gathered shovels and a pick ax and was about to dig the grave when we realized something bad. As I lifted the shovel above the earth and tried to sink it into the ground I heard a thud as my arms were jarred from the brute force. I looked at Sandy and in unison we said "SANDSTONE". Jeannie had went back inside to cool off and we just looked at each other for a minute while trying to decide what to do. We dug for seemingly an hour with sweat pouring off our brow in the 100 degree heat. Sandy looked at me as I was about to faint and she said "We can tie something to him and throw him into the pond, Jeannie will never know". Horrified, I went to look for some rocks. As we both doubled over with laughter we started back to digging. Finally 4 hours later we were able to put Grizzly to rest as Sandy's sons quoted the eulogy   "Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, We loved Grizzly and Grizzly loved us.