Lucky Dog Day

My friend Kate told me a neat story the other day. I guess she needed a good dog to confide in. When she was a child, she experienced a broken home. Like most children she loved both parents and could not understand why they did not love each other anymore. In fact, she had never heard her parents fuss; not even once. They seemed like the ideal mom and dad. They went to church. They laughed. They had a wonderful home. So, it will always be a mystery, she said, why they didn't stay together. Now she knows that some adults are good at keeping secrets.

From the day her dad left, the world just seemed to stop. Her mom started continually complaining about things; no money, a lousy job, how much noise her and her sister made...just about everything. She remembers frequently going into her sister's room after her mom had gone to bed. They would hug and whisper about how they missed their old life and together, cry themselves to sleep. That was life. For a long time.

But thank goodness life changes, she said. She's not sure why she remembers the day so clearly, maybe it was the misty, almost frozen rain. The fact that school had just been canceled and that she was already up and ready with nowhere to go probably helped. She remembers the heavy oversized sweater she had on....and even the day, Tuesday.

There was a faint, but persistent knock on the door; she opened it and a dripping, shivering, humped over little man with a crumpled hat, was leaning on a crutch before her. "Hi, little Miss. I just stopped by to say..." He paused, then almost as if he had been shocked by electricity, blurted out, "It's your Luck Dog Day!" Then he held out his free arm's palm. There was something in it. He urgently gestured for her to take the little plastic figure. Though now, as a mother herself, she would know better than to let her children open the door to a stranger, and she would most certainly tell them to never hold out their own hand to someone they did not know. But she did, back then. Fortunately no harm was done, rather,the little man dropped the piece of plastic into her hand, and, as if he had just dropped a live grenade, hobbled down the walkway as fast as his rickety crutch would allow.

As she closed the door, she looked down at the little toy dog. Not more than 3 inches long; it looked like another real life dog (or child) had chewed part of it's tail off. What did he say? Lucky Dog Day...that's silly. As she examined the worn out puppy closer she could see that someone had written on it's smooth belly, "Rover". Lucky Dog Day, yeah, right? I haven't felt lucky in a long, long time. (More to come)