“Strange how this journy’s hurting
In ways we accept as part of fate’s decree
So we just hold on fast
Acknowledge the past
As lessons exquisitely crafted
Painstakingly drafted
To carve us as instruments
That play the music of life”
— Vienna Teng, “Eric’s Song”
There are those, myself included, who often see life as an opera or symphony woven together by instruments and voices to complete the whole of life’s artistry. There are notes of joy, notes of sorrow, all crafting the music of life.
In November 2019, a brilliant but all too short string of notes began with a simple conversation. My wife, Kelley, came into my office and said, “You and I need to talk.” That is the kind of request that one suspects will lead to a discussion of big life or relationship issues.
This was big. It involved getting another dog.
At the time our dog Penny was a little over 9 years old and had been with us since December of 2011. We gave her the name Penelope, after the loyal wife of Odysseus. Loyalty had never meant more to us than at that time.
I was dead set against a second dog. But when your spouse and your kids align against you…
The search began to get a rescue dog. Kelley and my youngest son started a thread of life’s symphony by meeting a shelter dog at Pets Come First. They met a shaved, sad schnauzer that had been seized in a puppy mill raid.
My wife and son’s kind hearts could not leave this dog behind. So on the Friday after Thanksgiving, they brought this unnamed, unwanted dog into our home. There was a laundry list of small health ailments that came from neglect. No one even knew the year or day of her birth.
She’d been broken and abused, with no life in her eyes, no wag in her tail and no bark in her voice. There was no reason for her to trust in humanity. The outpouring of love and attention was probably overwhelmingly strange for her.
She’d never been outside. She’d never walked on a leash. She’d never had more space than the cage that confined her all day and every day. She didn’t know what it was to be a dog. She found her first safe space while she was still adjusting, always retreating to the dog bed in front of the fireplace.
For several days we wanted just to hear her bark, and soon she learned from Penny that she could use her voice.
Early on I remained hopeful, but skeptical.
My kids and Kelley were determined to transform this dog. My oldest son gave her the name Bonnie. Every night Kelley held her close to comfort her, and for Bonnie to comfort her as Kelley dealt with the end days of her father’s life. During COVID our middle daughter had a “Puppy Day Camp,” setting aside play time to engage Bonnie. Soon she started staying most nights with our youngest daughter.
Slowly but surely, joy came to her eyes, to the way she learned to prance and run around the house and outside. Her forever home was a place of warmth, giving her days and weeks of joy that she’d never known before. We’d mended a broken dog.
But she healed us, too. Seeing joy and life in her eyes, her wagging stumpy tail, the way she threw her whole body into her welcoming barking for everyone who came into the house. Knowing our hand in her transformation was a constant source of light, even in the darkest days. Her boundless joy was her gift to us; a gift that exceeded anything we could give to her.
As I worked on my first novel, Bonnie was always in my office. As I’ve been finishing and editing the follow-up second novel, she’s been in that same dog bed, soothed by the rhythmic sound of the keyboard keys. At other times, she’d curl up next to our oldest daughter as she worked on her grad school assignments.
And she was always fast to welcome visitors at the door, including our close friend Ben, who’d given her the nickname “Dinky” because of her speedy little gait running around the house.
During this past spring break, I was home alone, writing and editing all day. I watched and listened to Bonnie and Penny. With a mostly empty house, they’d head upstairs together, or come back downstairs, or into my office or lay in the sun on dog beds by the sliding glass doors.
The jingling of the nametags on their dog collars always let me know when they were on their way to or from somewhere. And Bonnie followed me everywhere.
Over the years, there were walks in Spring Creek Canyon, in Millbrook Marsh or in the mountains of Rothrock State Forest with a smile on her face and her tiny legs moving in rapid fire. Summer evenings were spent on the front porch listening to the birds or to Red Sox games.
Every morning after the dogs were fed and I made my own breakfast, Penny and Bonnie sat watching me intently. Their eyes were hopeful that part of my breakfast was coming their way. They knew when the sound of the blender mixing fruit smoothies stopped I’d slip them something: perhaps scrambled eggs or a dog treat. I never said no. How could I?
Bonnie’s transformation was nothing short of a miracle. And it seemed that there were many more years ahead of her. But the most awful truth of life’s lessons is the finiteness of time. No one can outrun it.
On Sunday night, Bonnie’s labored breathing led to an emergency visit to VCA Metzger Animal Hospital. Monday became a stream of updates, some hopeful, some foreboding. By late afternoon it became clear that inoperable cancer had metastasized throughout her little body.
The question was not “if” but “when?” We wish that we could play God to find a way to outrun mortality and have our dogs outrun theirs. But ultimately the only God decision we get to make is when it is best to help a dog pass from a life of pain. All loss, great and small, is the part of life’s journey’s “hurting” that we must accept as part of life’s decree.
Bonnie spent Monday night and all day Tuesday feeling the love and gratitude of a family who would be forever marked by the short span of her life with us.
Late Tuesday we had to say goodbye to a loyal dog. And just as Bonnie had comforted Kelley in the days leading up to the loss of her father, Kelley held her as she comforted Bonnie’s last moments.
On Wednesday morning, as Penny and I went outside alone to start the day, the hole in our lives became glaringly obvious. Here I was, the guy who didn’t want the dog, who became so invested in that beautiful soul, so saddened by it all. Now that the music has ended mournfully, I salute the incredible lifting notes the instrument of her life has added to the symphony of ours.
Until the day she died, before she’d lay down, Bonnie would paw at the dog bed or the blankets as if she was adjusting the uncomfortable straw that she’d probably slept on for the first several years of her life.
Now she’s in the heaven that Pope Francis has written awaits our canine companions. Little Bonnie deserves that. After years of neglect and abuse, four and a half years of love just doesn’t seem like enough.
Now she’s crossed over. She’ll never have to paw at the straw to make a comfortable place to sleep again. Instead, she’s left her life’s soaringly beautiful and inspirational music to forever be part of our life’s symphony.
