Ever by My Side (39 page)

I am reminded of another dog and another father delivering the devastating news of a broken bond. Once again, an animal from
my past has reached through time and space because one day it will be my turn, instead of my father’s, to make a difficult phone call, and it will be about Sophie, not Patch. Will I do as good a job as my father did with me? How do I help Whitney to understand how the connection she currently feels is, at its core, permanent? How can I explain that it may be different later yet just as strong, with ramifications beyond her comprehension?

If she doesn’t believe me, I will know exactly what to do. I’ll tell her a story about a former client of mine, a remarkable woman named Sandi Rasmussen, who has taught me many valuable lessons about loss since the tragic death of her Min Pin, Cleo. I’ve kept in touch with Sandi over the years, and not so long ago she was on vacation in Europe, standing at the check-in line at Frankfurt Airport, when a young couple with a dog caught her eye. The dog was a striking German shepherd, and as they all stood at another counter, it was obvious from their collective body language and the expression of the woman working the desk that something was seriously wrong.

“I tried not to pay attention,” said Sandi, “but this dog was such a love and so handsome, I felt like I had to go and find out what was wrong. The man was a soldier who had just received his deployment papers for Iraq. He and his wife had been stationed in Germany and he was going back to the States, home to his family in Pittsburgh, and there he would settle his wife and his dog in his grandmother’s house before heading off to war.

“The airline claimed he had purchased the wrong dog crate for the flight and refused to fly his dog. They said he could purchase a new crate at a cost of 300 euros or they would have to miss their flight and pay another 200 euros to rebook. The soldier’s name was Daniel and he was devastated, tears welling up in his eyes. They didn’t have that kind of money. I’ve never had a shepherd, but it was obvious, this dog was special, incredibly well behaved, and obviously
meant the world to this young man. How could he leave this animal behind?”

In a different era, given the circumstances, a shrewd airline manager might have been summoned, and, sensing an opportunity, done the right thing, getting the dog on the flight, gaining a customer for life in the process. Of course, these days, there would be no such compromise.

“There was nothing to think about,” said Sandi. “I gave them the money. Daniel hugged me so hard. He promised to pay me back but I told him it wasn’t necessary.”

Okay, I know what you’re thinking, a kind and generous gesture from one animal lover to another, but so what. The thing is, it didn’t end there. Though Sandi was content to have played her part in making sure a soldier prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice was able to keep his dog, it turned out they were all on the same flight, and shortly after takeoff, Daniel sought her out to thank her once again.

“He wanted to know why I did this for him and so I told him the truth. I told him about my Cleo, a dog who wasn’t with me long enough but who is still there for me today. I wanted him to know that I got it, that I understood exactly how far these creatures can crawl into our hearts and I wanted him to realize that the feeling never really goes away. I was doing this for Cleo, and by the end of my story, this time Daniel really was crying.”

I imagined a young soldier, all macho crew cut, square-jawed and muscle-bound in desert fatigues, blocking an aisle chatting to a fiftysomething woman, mesmerized by her story and unable to hold back the tears.

“He cried so hard and he promised to pay it forward, to do something worthy of my Cleo. Then he gave me one more hug and said, ‘This is why I am proud to serve my country.’ ”

And for me, this was the best part, because here’s the kicker. Sandi isn’t American. Sandi is Canadian. She could have corrected the solider as he headed back to his seat to be with his wife, but she chose not to, because that’s not who she is. Wisely, she left it at that—the soldier had his lesson, I had mine, and one day, when the time comes, it’s a lesson I will pass along to Whitney.

During an all-too-familiar damp spell in July, I find myself spending a few days in the Dales checking in on my parents.

Of an evening, families in England might gather around a fireplace. Instead, we are gathered around a black Labrador on a luxurious foam dog bed, and as I study my father over a mug of milky tea, a part of me finally comes to terms with the fact that I will never be able to offer him a true James Herriot experience. I can accept this because I realize that what I have offered instead is no less affecting and personal. I wouldn’t want you to think that I don’t try to share my take on veterinary medicine at every opportunity. Over the years my father has joined me for consultations, observing my interactions with owner and animal with a kind of earnest concentration, before I force him into gown, cap, and mask in order to watch me perform surgery in the OR. It’s a far cry from his dreams of ether and ungloved hands or the physicality of large-animal interventions amid the jabs of heckling farmers, but he has stood quietly by, watching every cut and stitch, insisting he has been fascinated. On the drive home, from the passenger seat, he asks all the questions he held back for fear of disturbing me at work, and when he gets to our house his first order of business is to check in with my mum. To my delight, I have overheard whispered conversations as he recounts our day. He rambles because childish excitement
has got his tongue, words delivered in quick bursts, as he shares what he has learned. As I listen, all I can think is that he sounds just like me when I was a little boy, when I was first infected with the “animal bug,” and I think back on my earliest experiences spending time with a veterinarian. Perhaps I haven’t done so badly. Maybe, on some imperfect level, I have shown my father a window into my world, a different world, and, given his response, I can tell it is not so different from the version he had always imagined.

“Did we tell you about your sister?” says my mother amid the click of knitting needles. “She’s gone and got herself a dog.”

“What the …” is the best I can manage as my brain grapples with a notion so absurd as to be unbelievable.

“Now then, son,” says my father somewhat sternly, “don’t act so surprised. Fiona has always been a dog lover.”

This claim helps me transition from speechless into the Twilight Zone.

“Are we talking about the same one-and-only sister who nearly got bitten in the face by a certain golden retriever named Whiskey when she was a kid and hasn’t shown the slightest interest in anything remotely canine ever since?”

My father tut-tuts away my recollection with a wave of his hand, as though he refuses to entertain such a notion.

“Fiona was very fond of our Whiskey. So much so she decided to get a golden retriever for herself. They’ve named her Lily.”

Now I know I have been teleported into some sort of bizarro world where all my father’s dreams come true. It isn’t until I telephone my sister that I accept this outlandish about-face.

“It was the kids who wanted a dog,” she says, “but Lily is great. She’s the best. Yeah, so she digs holes everywhere and she’s turned the backyard into a muddy battlefield but we all love her to pieces.”

Have I dialed the wrong number? Where is the sister who always sided with my mother, protesting the acquisition of a new dog? How has she come to embrace a creature who is into trench warfare reenactments? I don’t know, but there is no denying the sentiment in her words. This Lily has been inserted into her family, a canine stranger, embraced and already vital, in a way I would never have imagined possible. Feeling the glow of what she has discovered, it makes me wonder whether Fiona had sensed something important was wanting in all their lives. Whatever it is that my parents have passed on, be it written in DNA or upbringing, finally, both their children have become addicted to the companionship of animals.

When Sasha gets up, following my father into the kitchen, I tackle her and chance the obligatory “once-over.” On her belly, slightly off midline and to the right, is a lump, firm, possibly fatty but well attached, not mobile. With great care I mention my finding.

“Yes, we know,” says Dad, laying a hand on her head like a blessing. “Not to worry, I’m keeping a close eye on it.”

I nod my appreciation but wonder how it might change over the next few months. What I keep to myself is my observation of Sasha’s front paws. She has big feet for a girl, and I notice how her toes are a little splayed on the left, reminiscent of an elderly woman with rheumatoid arthritis, the joints and knuckles thick and gnarly.

“How’s she doing on her walks?” I ask.

“Fine,” says Dad, “she’s a little slower than she used to be but then so am I. We still manage three walks a day.”

“How far?”

Dad winces but I can still sense his mind pacing out the routes, tallying up the mileage.

“Eight to ten miles, I reckon, all told.”

No wonder Sasha stays lean (despite all the treats I see him slipping in her direction). Then again, so does my father. He seems to
be wasting away. Is there something wrong that he isn’t telling me? Are the changes in Sasha’s paws the result of all this wear and tear and is she about to break down, unable to keep up with the routine her master so dearly craves? If his dog can’t walk, I am not sure how my father will cope.

Without my parents knowing, I had strolled up to the top of the village in search of their dear friend Vera, seeking her take on my father’s health. She is a small, feisty woman and wonderfully forthright, as sharp as ever at eighty-five, with the hands of a farmer after years of gardening.

“He lives for that dog, doesn’t he?” she told me and I had to agree.

“Last month,” she said, “when he went off to Australia to visit your sister, he was acting all melancholy about not seeing Sasha for so long, and how would he cope and how would she be affected by the trip, and I said to him, Duncan, don’t be so bloody silly! The poor dog will love it. She finally gets to have a rest!”

Before I leave them again, with Sasha pooped out and asleep on her bed, I ask my father to take me to the private graveyard on the hillside where Whiskey and Bess were buried, a place I have never been.

We walk down through the village, past the cottages and farmhouses, turn right, uphill, and after a quarter mile find a footpath. It leads us through a dense copse and I become aware of a pungent odor in the air, like raw onions.

“What’s that smell?” I ask, beginning to feel the climb in my chest, surprised the mission has changed from a quick visit to an actual hike.

“Wild garlic,” says my father, pointing to the long grassy leaves blanketing the woodland floor. Once again, he is hardly panting. Nearly fifty years of walking dogs has paid big dividends with regard to his fitness.

“Perhaps we should take some home to mother,” I say. “Spice up her cooking!”

I look back to register my father’s smile but he tactfully says nothing as we make it to the top and a narrow gap in the wall built specifically for hikers, and thin hikers at that.

“This way,” says Dad, striding out.

I am waiting for a “not much further now” but it never comes. We cross another field mined with cow patties, and another, over a stile and then into a field occupied by sheep and lambs.

“Head toward the top left-hand corner,” he says and all I can think of is how on earth he carried Bess and Whiskey all the way up here. Bess must have weighed sixty pounds, Whiskey more like eighty. And there was no way my mother would have been able to help.

We leave the field, cross a lightly rutted trail that obviously provides access for small vehicles, open a large railed gate, and step into one more field. We are in a large pasture, the final neat rectangular plot before the land angles up steeply, rising and merging into a much larger hill dotted with sheep pretending to be mountain goats. I can see at least thirty miles up and down the dale in both directions.

“Here we are,” says my father, and to be honest I am a bit surprised. Up against the drystone wall, adjacent to a small metal hut in which shelters a bay gelding, there lie a series of tombstones. There are sheep in the field, watching us, and the horse comes over to see what we are up to. I think I must have expected the shade from some mighty oak, something very private, and something far more accessible. But then this soft muzzle brushes up against my shoulder, a blast of warm horse breath blowing across my hand. As I rub the horse’s nose, his friendliness strikes me as being so respectful, almost reverential, and I begin to appreciate the whole scene with
a new perspective, how it has a certain calm and natural quietness to it, a simple place that makes you feel part of something bigger.

“The first one is theirs,” says my father, doing a little tidying up around the base of the stone.

I read the legend.

WHISKEY AND BESS, FAITHFUL FRIENDS
.

“Looks good,” I say.

“Aye,” says my father, this small word and his gentle tone speaking volumes about their relationship.