CODY

By Randy Randall

This is a story about need—the need of an old man for a companion and the need of an unwanted puppy for a new home. After mom died, we told dad he should get a dog.

“It’s not good to live alone,” we said.

”Oh, I’ll be OK,” he said. “I can take care of myself. What do I need a dog for? One more thing to have to worry about. “

But it’s lonely when there’s no one in the house to talk to, when there’s no one to eat with or prepare meals for. It’s even lonelier when you’re by yourself in the bedroom you shared with your wife for over fifty years.

We had grown up with an old farm collie. Digger had been our family dog for over ten years. Dad and I wept openly when we nailed his box together and buried him on the banks of the Saco River.

“A dog would be a companion,” we told him.

He listened and visited the shelter but nothing clicked. Then one day my sister Ruthie saw a handwritten ad on the bulletin board at Hannaford’s grocery store. It read “Free to a good home. Collie dog,” and gave the number.

“I don’t want to take over someone else’s dog,” dad said.

Ruthie said, “I’ll call them and go with you.”

The address led to a run-down tenement in Biddeford and an apartment that was way too small to hold the mom and dad and many, many kids. No room anymore for a dog. He had to go. The ad had been partly correct. He was mostly collie, but there was strong evidence of other breeds too, possibly spaniel or terrier. But his white ruff and long hair were enough to remind dad of Digger, who’d lived with us so many years ago.

Dad knelt down on the floor, patted the puppy’s head, and ruffled his ears.

“Would you like to come home with me?” he said.

And that was that. Things have not been the same since.

Cody came to live with dad, and to say they are two peas in a pod is an understatement. We marvel that two personalities could be so well matched. Dad has no need for a leash, as Cody never ventures far from dad’s side or for very long. When we come to visit in the evening, we find them both in the living room watching television. Dad will be sitting on the couch, and Cody will be lying at his feet. When we play cribbage in the kitchen, Cody naps on the floor right by dad’s chair. When we eat with dad, Cody lies right beside the table. When they travel, Cody rides “shotgun” in dad’s Jeep. It’s amazing really; the dog seems to have no other desire in the world than to be with dad.

When they go to the cabin at the lake, the Jeep is filled with joy. Dad, of course, has wonderful memories of staying there at the lake with mom, and Cody goes berserk in anticipation of the water and the woods. Dad stops the Jeep at the top of the hill, and Cody bounds down the road leading the way to camp. At the cabin there’s not enough space to hold the dog. He’s everywhere at once. Swimming in the lake, rolling in the dead leaves, chasing the wayward rabbit or squirrel, or sniffing up the neighbor’s cat but always coming back to lie right there at dad’s feet beside the old Lazy Boy.

When darkness comes and the wood fire has burned down low, and dad lies down on the old camp bed that he and Mom shared for so many years, he is not alone anymore. Cody lies down, too, on the rug just beside the bed.  

 

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