(via This Year’s Love)
It might seem silly to people when I tell them that I think of Judah as no more than a dog because of the way that I speak about her. Her name is tattooed into my skin with Hebrew letters. If I had to choose between saving her life or that of friends or family, there would be no hesitation: I would carry her from a burning building, I would push her out of the way of a car, I would take a bullet for her.
But she is not my “child with fur”. She isn’t my daughter. She isn’t a stand in for a baby that I will never have.
She is just a dog. An animal. She will never be a human substitute. I never wanted her to be.
But it has taken me five years to be able to put into words what exactly it is about this dog, this mutt, that is so special.
I mulled it over and came to the realization this morning while sitting at my desk in between answering the phones and helping customers.
Growing up I always wanted a dog. I needed a dog. In every hair, muscle and bone of my body I knew that I had to have one or I would never be whole.
I had all of these fantasies, dreams and ideals for how I knew my life would turn out when I became an adult. I would be beautiful, elegant, find a great love, marry him in the wedding ceremony of my dreams (the one I started planning when I was twelve) and we would have a passel of kids with the best names ever. I would live in a two story farm house with a garden out back that I would pick fresh vegetables from while wearing a wide-brimmed hat with a ribbon tied under my chin, the produce going into a large basket hooked over my arm. My job would be as a mom and housewife. I would cook all of the meals from scratch, fresh bread would always be baking in the morning to fill the house with the delicious yeasty scent of cooking dough. We would have barbeques and family picnics. I would wear plaid blouses and jeans with the cuffs rolled up and pristine white tennis shoes, a red bandanna holding my hair back. And I would be happy.
Instead, I am a spinster who has never dated. I live in a house I hate because it needs repairs I can’t afford or do myself. I drive a piece of shit car that has an exhaust leak, no turn signals, faulty electric and the window won’t roll down. Oh, and the motor for the heat/air doesn’t work anymore.
I don’t have a garden. There were never any parties on rooftops with strings of lights and good wine and conversation with the sort of music playing that you only hear in indie movies about ironic love.
If I learned anything at all it is that everything can and will get worse no matter how much you try.
Be careful what you wish for is very good wisdom. It’s so true—because the things you thought you wanted never turn out the way you hope they will. They will almost always make you miserable or let you down.
But there is one exception.
The mutt who was born sometime in October of 2004 that passed into my life on December 2, 2004.
She is the only blessing that never became a curse.
She is my one sure thing.
She is the fulfillment of the hope, wish, dream, fantasy, desire of my childhood. The embodiment of the childish expectation. The only thing that growing up didn’t ruin.
I have never been disappointed by her. I never will. I love her in the purest, simplest, truest form of the word “love”.
And because of that I can still feel the tiniest bit of hope left inside of me that everything might turn out okay.
I might one day have the rooftop party with the bobbing clear lightbulbs in the breeze, laughter ringing out, music playing, sipping wine and talking about only important things: like being a kid and never forgetting it’s okay to dream.
Sometimes they decide to come true after all.
