Love For a Dog, Not a Fire

Sometimes I will tell a story about one thing and realize at the end of it, I have really made some other kind of point I never intended to make. This is often the same with my writing - who knows why? Maybe because I can't concentrate or am prone to distractions - all true, in my writing life and my waking life. Whatever it is, I think I will embrace it rather than try to transform it into a more linear train of thought - both because that seems creative and because that is easier. Always a bonus.

Take my one traumatic fire experience (I burned my hair and hand but remained unscathed otherwise - lesson learned: leave the cooking to the pros...or my husband.) I found that the tale was less about burnt curtains and charred cabinets and really about the powerful connection with our old dear dog, Tad.

Tad was my husband's baby and I was lucky enough to inherit him in the blessed union. He (Tad, not my husband) was pretty fat and in his older years had a bum leg due to the cancer that would eventually get the better of him. Right out of law school, my husband and I were forced to live apart through the week while I worked the crummiest job in the history of employment. I would keep Tad with me when my husband went to visit his family for holidays, which helped the dreadful situation greatly.

This was one of those times - right before Christmas. The weather outside was frightful - cold and icy and crisp, and my mood was in a similar state. (See above: world's most terrible job.) My horrible nightmare started when I tried to cook chicken wings and succeeded only at scaring myself half to death while setting my kitchen ablaze.

In the midst of confusion, dousing the fire, calling 911, and getting my friend to come over to assist in my panic, Tad somehow slipped right out the door of my apartment. A few minutes passed before I realized it. At that moment, while volunteer firemen barely old enough to drive checked for structural damage and my friend got my coat to take me to the ER, I totally freaked.

In sweatpants and my best Winnie the Pooh slippers I tore onto the ice-rink of a driveway and screamed for Tad, running and sliding my way across the shiny blackness, my tears frozen on my face and my burnt hand forgotten. Someone casually called that a dog was at the end of the street and I literally glided my way to him - he was at the opening of the driveway, pacing back and forth in a perfect line, whimpering and motioning toward the apartment and to me. I fell to him, grasped for his comfort. He stood there stoically, his head held high, while I clung to him and cried in relief and pain and guilt for allowing him out of my sight at all.

We walked back to the apartment together as the excitement died down and everyone went into the night. My friend helped us inside and we sat a minute, the 3 of us - adrenalin released and calmness descending, Tad's head in my lap.

Later that night, my hand bandaged and my fears alleviated, Tad and I lay together - I on the couch, he on the floor beside me. I slipped into slumber while listening to his even breaths, just a girl and a dog who loved each other and, at that exact moment, needed each other more than ever. Tad was a hero that night, my hero, and my heart ached with love for him.

Tad is still with us, I think, always in our hearts and never forgotten. He was more than a dog or a best friend. He was a lesson - to appreciate the goodness of life, even in the badness of a particular moment. I try this everyday and I know Tad is pacing along with me, too, content and peaceful and watching out for me even now.