PATIENCE AND LOYALTY

By Robert Alan Johnson

“I guess dogs will never cure cancer or win the Nobel Prize, but I believe they teach us a lot about patience and loyalty.”

The vet’s words drew my attention from the stainless steel exam table against my back, the linoleum floor against my buttocks, and the slowly breathing dog whose head was in my lap.

I hadn’t thought of the sixteen years of opening cans of beef chunks, misty morning walks, and countless bags of droppings leading to this moment in those terms.

The stairs became too tall, the floors too slippery, balance all but gone, and I had brought my dog to the vet one last time. Memories of my son rolling on the floor with the puppy had quickly replaced the drudgery of caring for an old dog as we walked through the exam room door. Had I gotten all I needed from those lessons on patience? Then there was loyalty...

The dank, pungent odors of the endless stream of pets that had passed through that space mingled with the low buzzing of the clippers carefully and gently exposing the bulging vein on my dog’s leg. The injection and the breaths coming more slowly like a clock running down. Alone, weeping softly on the exam room floor covered in dog hair and patting his head, murmuring, “Good boy, good boy.”

Returning again to the vet’s words, I curled into the weathered deck chair against the chill wind coming off the Vineyard Sound. They had driven me to the shore in February to revisit summers past.

Inside my leather jacket, the chirp of my cell phone penetrated the blowing wind. My son, no longer a little boy, calling to see how it had gone.

“I wanted to see how you were doing,” he said softly in my ear from across the miles.  

 

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