The Great Fish Tank War
The war of the fish tank never raged; it was the quietest war in history. The fish in the tank weren’t even involved. The battles pitted man against cat for tank domination and the engagements were never decisive, even though the man often thought them to be. The war began the day my daughters Emily and Krista brought home two goldfish and a ten-gallon tank complete with gravel, filter, and one of those ancient Greek temples the fish are supposed to swim through and relax in but which they actually avoid like death. While the rest of the household regarded the fish with mild interest, Draco the cat ignored them almost completely. It wasn’t the fish which started the war; it was the call of the water.
Draco the Cat was not named for the Harry Potter character but it suited him. He was a sly and devilish creature whose inner vocabulary never included the concept of `no’. We got him from a pet rescue. He was a tiny black kitten with large golden eyes as round as a lemur’s, a soft purr, and the strangest `meow’ I’d ever heard; it sounded more like the burble of some strange bird than a cat. Like every kitten we’d ever brought home, we put him in the bathroom at first with his food and cat box until he became acclimated. Every other kitten had accepted this situation, even though they would sometimes yowl to get out and explore, and waited more or less patiently until the day they were given free run of the house. In keeping with this practice, the day we brought Draco home we put him in the bathroom and went about our business. I was reading on the couch when, less than fifteen minutes after we’d come home, this small black kitten suddenly jumped up on my shoulder, nuzzled my ear, and began purring. I could not understand how he’d gotten out of the bathroom. I’d closed the door myself and I knew it had latched. How could a tiny kitten open a bathroom door? I sat with him awhile and read him some poetry, which he seemed to enjoy and purred all the way through; though I admit the petting might have had more to do with that. I then had to work on some writing and placed him in his little comfy box back in the bathroom and shut the door. It was maybe twenty minutes later when he startled me hopping up on my lap where I sat at the computer. I inspected the bathroom door and the latch worked as well as ever. I had to conclude this cat had magical powers, other-worldly assistance, or super-cat strength in opening doors. This feat of his, though, was only the beginning.
In the years we had Draco the Cat I found him perched on the tops of doors, curled up high on kitchen cabinet tops no cat should have been able to reach, and once found him asleep in the corner of a closet shelf he could not have gotten to without leaping over ten feet up straight from the floor. There was no place you could keep Draco in or out of. He was the Houdini of cats. There were three other cats who lived with us, all female: Little Kitty (a Sydney Greenstreet type of calculating villain), Eggnog (the perpetual damsel in distress) and Luna (the spacey hippie). Draco, as the male, considered himself a noble prince and Lord of the Realm but it was pretty clear that Little Kitty actually ran the show, using Nog and Luna as her puppets, and maybe this was why he felt he had to show his superiority in scaling heights and grand feats none of the others could attain. And maybe this was also how the war of the fish tank began.
As the fish swam happily around in their tank, always avoiding the Greek temple they were supposed to play in, the cats were watching. Once I passed by and, noticing the tank looked odd, paused for a closer look and found Luna sitting in back of it watching them. Another time Eggnog hopped up and tried to get her paw in the top to scoop one out. Little Kitty even hoisted her enormous bulk up onto the bureau where the tank sat to study the fish and contemplate their untimely demise. These were all singular incidents, however; it was only Draco who never gave up.
Draco didn’t care about the fish. In his world the fish were no more than wallpaper to his actual object of desire: the water. The fish tank pump continuously sent a cascade of water arcing down into the tank, making a soft, sibilant sound even when the tank was filled to the top; and Draco loved water. He loved the dog’s water. He loved the water in the kitchen sink. He loved the water left in glasses on the kitchen counters or living room tables. He loved all water everywhere in the house except the bathtub. All of these, though, were still waters; the fish tank was sparkling – and its soft sound beckoned.
The first time I found Draco drinking out of the fish tank I told him `no’ and put him on the floor. The second time I found him up there I yelled at him and tossed him onto the floor. The third time I discovered him I squirted him with a spritzer and shouted “No!” and the fourth time I did the same. The seventy-fifth time I repeated the above with variations. Nothing made any difference. My wife Betsy covered the opening of the tank with foil; Draco gently peeled it back and drank his fill. She covered it in plastic; he did the same. I covered it in plastic wrap, foil wrapped round with duct tape, and placed a large Styrofoam skull from Halloween on it to scare him off; he knocked the skull to the floor, broke through the plastic, and unwrapped the tank for a drink. At first, I just hadn’t wanted him bothering the fish, then I’d not wanted him drinking fish water. I also didn’t want him disturbing the pump’s operation – which he’d done twice. Finally, though, it became a simple battle of wills. Who was this cat to continuously defy me? I was the man, he was the cat, and he was going to learn to behave as it pleased me. Draco’s view of the situation differed; in his world, he was the cat and I was the thing he slept on and who was I to constantly annoy him at his water banquet?
The war of the fish tank dragged on for almost two years until its dramatic conclusion. My latest attempt to keep him off the bureau was to set up a number of pictures of the family in frames around the tank. I had also placed some figurines there, a desk calendar, a lamp. None of these deterred him. Lithe as a spirit, he would hop up and manage to land perfectly between my obstacles, raise himself up, and drink from the tank. I knew this first because I heard him jump down when I was sitting reading in the next room and he came in to sit on my lap fresh with the scent of fish tank upon him. I then saw him in action one time as I was coming down the stairs. His skill at landing in between the pictures and the figurines, not moving one of them an inch, was very impressive. Still, I could not let this cat defy me day after day and month on month. And so the day came when I walked into the room and there he was, draped over the top of the fish tank, absorbed in his drink. I grabbed up the spritzer bottle and let him have it. He reeled away from the tank, scattering everything around him. A picture frame flew to the floor with a loud crack, another disappeared in back of the bureau, the figurines spiraled skyward and all across the floor while the desk calendar danced itself in a pirouette and then joined them. Draco launched himself into the air and vanished into the other room.
I looked at the mess all over the floor and the cracked picture frame, thought of how I was going to have to now move the bureau out to retrieve the one fallen behind it, and realized he’d won. He had never been doing anything all that bad in the first place. Once I’d moved the pump further away from the side, he hadn’t bothered its operation anymore, he never disturbed the fish themselves and, since I always kept the tank clean, it wasn’t like he was drinking water which could harm him. The whole war, I realized, had been one sided with me as the aggressor. All Draco had wanted to do was enjoy his special water dispenser.
So he won. After that day I would sit writing at the computer, the fish tank trickling and bubbling beside me, and Draco would hop up, get his drink, and go on his way. The first time he did this after my surrender he watched me carefully with his large, round eyes, suspecting a trap. The second time he was also wary for any sudden moves on my part. The third time he was a little more easy, a bit more casual, but still kept raising his head to make sure I hadn’t moved and that the spritzer wasn’t in sight. By the seventy-fifth time he just ignored me and, after drinking, would sit by the tank while deciding his next move. He would then seem to shrug, gaze about a moment, and then hop down to go nap in his favorite corner of the living room couch.
I could have continued the war. I could have moved the fish tank, boxed the top, anchored the plastic or foil with hoops of steel; but what was the point? If you have a cat, you must at some point recognize who is master and who is not; and the sooner you do that the happier you both will be.
END
The White Dog
I was standing out on the back porch the first time I saw him. I stood trembling, shaking, all through my body. My wife, Betsy, had been diagnosed with breast cancer less than a month earlier and, that morning, I would be taking her to the hospital for the procedure of the lumpectomy and removal of some lymph nodes.
A mug of coffee in my right hand, I’d just stepped out onto the back porch to take a few deep breaths and try to stop the panic I felt inside every time I thought about what we were going through. I could not stop my mind from asking the question I never wanted to think about – `What if she dies?’ – our daughter, Emily, was only two and a half at the time. We’d been married ten years then; felt like we’d known each other all our lives.
And so there I stood, trying to control the panic – when there he was, sitting out in the back yard near the east corner of the garage. He was a medium-sized white dog, a labrador mix maybe. I didn’t see him enter the yard from anywhere but I’d been distracted, lost in thought, wouldn’t have noticed him walking in from another yard on the street. The strange thing was, though, how he looked at me. He wasn’t moving, wasn’t sniffing the ground; he looked steadily at me with those warm brown eyes and I looked back and then he dipped his head slightly and walked off toward the tree line behind our garage.
It would have been absolutely nothing to speak of except that I felt, suddenly, much calmer. I was aware that I hadn’t felt this way since Betsy’s diagnosis a month earlier.
We’d only just moved into our house two months before and had been concentrating on fixing it up. I didn’t know the neighbors on the street, didn’t know who may have had a white Labrador or any other kind of dog. Certainly, I thought, the dog had to belong to someone even though it wore no collar. It was just a dog who had wandered into the backyard and nothing else.
I could not explain what I was feeling, though; how confident I suddenly felt that everything would be all right.
On the way to the hospital that morning I asked Betsy, “Do you believe in totems?”
“Maybe I would,” she said. “If I knew what one was.”
“Oh. You know, messengers from the spirit world, like angels, from God. Like as in Totem Poles, you know?”
“What messages do they bring?”
“Messages about our lives. Life, death, love, changes – hope – those sorts of things.”
“I guess God can send a message anyway he likes. Why?”
“Nothing. It’s just – I saw this white dog out back this morning and – and I just felt – better somehow. He was there and then he was gone but he – let me know it would all be all right. Everything with you. Sounds crazy, I know.”
She smiled at me and patted my leg.
The surgery was a success and, on this uneven path we found ourselves trying to walk steadily, the next step was chemotherapy. The only problem was that Betsy couldn’t take needles. The Oncologists decided the best way around this was to implant a sub-cutaneous port-a-cath in her chest to administer the chemo.
And so there came another morning of another surgery and, again, my stomach kept flipping around inside of me and my head felt light and tingling and I kept wanting to cry or hit something – and I stepped out onto the back porch with my coffee to see the white dog sitting in the exact same spot as before, looking directly at me.
I actually wanted to ask him a question. I wanted to ask him `Why?’ I wanted this dog to tell me why all of this was going on and how it would all end. The dog just sat there gazing at me and I felt instantly ashamed I’d forgotten the reassurance I’d been given before. No sooner did I remind myself of that than the dog turned and walked off in the same direction he’d gone earlier.
And the second surgery went just as fine as the first.
I went around the neighborhood asking people if they owned a white dog. There was one neighbor with a small white poodle – but that wasn’t `my’ dog. No one on the street over had a white dog matching `my’ dog either. As I’d drive around on my various errands or to work I became especially attentive to people walking dogs; but none of the dogs in the village was the white dog.
The morning of the first dose of Adriamycin I felt jagged and tired. Betsy hadn’t been sleeping well, worrying about how she would react to the chemo, and I had been up most of the night. Stepping out onto the back porch that morning I was silently praying the dog would be there; and he was.
In the same spot, with the same look in his eyes, the white dog gazed steadily across the short expanse of lawn at me and I looked back, sighed gratefully and nodded at him. He seemed to almost nod back but, I was sure, it was just that dip of the head he would do just before leaving. He started off in the same direction he always did, heading east toward the tree line.
I almost felt like crying in gratitude.
The feeling this dog gave me – that everything was going to be all right – was not a guarantee that Betsy would not die of cancer nor that we weren’t going to suffer; rather it seemed the assurance that, whatever happened, we were not going through it alone.
Betsy responded well to chemo and, when those treatments were done, she went through radiation. Months were measured in chemo treatments, trips to the Oncologists and diet regimens. We found ourselves closer than we’d even been before, we talked more, we took more chances, went more places, we had more fun. Nights in our house were like three kids at a sleepover as we’d play hide and seek with Emily or just dance to music in the kitchen, the three of us together.
And so a year passed and there came a morning when I was going to take Betsy to the hospital for another surgery: to have the port-a-cath removed. She was cancer free, at least for now; and I’d come to recognize that `for now’ is really all any of us have.
I half expected to see the white dog that morning as I stepped out onto the back porch; but then, I also knew, I didn’t need to. He’d already delivered the message three times and, finally, I’d understood it.
END
The Boots that Saved my Life
I’ve never hunted and never been interested in the sport but my friend, Matt, became a devoted hunter. Matt and I were college friends; he lived in the New York City area and I lived in upstate New York and he would often come stay with me to hunt in the woods around my house. On the days he hunted he would be up and out well before dawn and would leave me a note of where he was heading – longitude and latitude – and where and when he expected to emerge from the woods. My job was to find him there and bring him back to my place. This routine worked well every time and I liked the challenge of working from numbers on a map to pinpoint where I’d find him, reading whatever book I had until I heard the snap of a twig under his boot.
He called me this one time, though, and said he’d be bringing along his friend Kevin. I knew Kevin and liked him – he was a great guy – but as soon as I heard Matt’s voice on the phone telling me this, I felt uneasy. I had no idea why I should feel that way. Matt asked if I could meet them at a certain spot – longitude and latitude – some distance from my place and pick them both up to drive them back to their hotel. I agreed but, even as I did, I felt an odd tightening in the pit of my stomach.
The day of the hunt I went about my usual business and then got into my old clothes for hiking, including my old boots. I was just about to leave, my hand on the doorknob, when I felt the very strong – and strange – sensation that I should change my boots. I’m not big on fashion and don’t spend much time thinking about what to wear and so couldn’t understand why I would be feeling this way. My wife, Betsy, had recently bought me a new pair for work – not for stomping around fields or woods – and the ones I was wearing were my traditional go-find-Matt boots. There was no reason to change my boots but, when tried to shake the feeling off and leave the house, the sensation was so strong I couldn’t resist it.
New boots on, I drove the forty minutes to the area I’d calculated they would be and pulled in by the tree line off on a back road. I grabbed my book and walked down the road, consciously keeping from the sides where my boots might scuff on rocks. Scanning for a suitable reading spot, I noticed a green hill and wandered over there. This hill overlooked a ravine lined with stones of various sizes and shapes. The sun was dropping down low and the small valley was illuminated with a bright orange glow which sparkled among the large granite and smaller quartz far below me. Looking around, I figured this was pretty much the perfect spot since they would see me on the hill from whatever direction they came. I sat down and read my book.
It wasn’t long before I heard a shout and saw them coming down the road. They weren’t carrying any deer or any other game, just their rifles. I called out, “No luck?” and Matt shrugged and smiled but Kevin was clearly angry and greeted me shouting, “Nothing! Out all day and – Nothing!” Matt just shrugged again, saying, “Next time” and we all sat down on the hilltop, Matt to my left and Kevin to my right.
Matt was talking about the day while Kevin checked his 30.06 rifle and kept shifting the bolt. Kevin said how he wanted to shoot something, had come on the whole silly trip just to shoot something, and hadn’t had a chance all day. Matt told him to calm down. Kevin continued on – he’d been ripped off, the stupid deer had it in for him, the day just wasn’t right for deer hunting anyway – and all this time I looked across the ravine and down at the last light of the day sparkling among the stones.
Suddenly, as I was looking down, I noticed a splotch of mud on the toe of my left boot; and here I’d been so careful. As I noticed this mud, I heard Kevin’s voice louder beside me as he yelled, “I don’t care. I don’t care! I’m shooting something whether it’s living or not!” As he said this I leaned forward to flick the mud from the boot and heard the loud crack of his rifle fire next to me – heard the `ping’ of the bullet hitting stone – and, as I leaned down, my finger touching my boot – felt the bullet whiz through the top of my hair in ricochet. If I had not leaned forward at that precise moment that bullet would have gone right through my forehead and, with the hollow points Kevin had in his weapon, would have completely blown out the back of my head.
He couldn’t apologize enough but my heart was beating so fast and loud I could hardly hear him. Sure, I was angry, but the main sensation I had was awe. I thought of Betsy, waiting for me back home, of my mother and my brothers and sisters and friends and all the lives which could have been changed in a moment if I hadn’t bent forward to brush some mud off my boot; a boot I shouldn’t even have been wearing that day. Something, somewhere, had saved my life and ever since I have been quite conscious of that fact and always very grateful.
The memory of that day has come back to me many times since. Every anniversary with Betsy, when my daughter Emily was born, and so many days with them both since. When a friend or student or anyone else has thanked me for some assistance, when I publish another story, the memory stirs. All of the years since that day have been possible because of one single moment when I listened to and trusted what I felt; even though it made no earthly sense at the time.
END
A Cat of My Own
When I was a kid my house was a cat magnet. My parents were both well known in the community and so were their passions; among which was animal rescue. They were always adopting animals from the local shelter and bringing home strays of all types. At one point we had six dogs, thirteen cats, an aquarium of lab rats saved from euthanasia, wild birds whose wings had broken (separated from the cat community in their own room), lizards, homeless turtles, mice, two horses, and even a goat. This might all have been fine if we lived on a farm but we didn’t. We had a large house – a grand old 19th century home which had once served as General Store, doctor’s office, post office, and feed depot – but even a house that large could feel small with the ever-growing menagerie of animals. Whenever someone in the neighborhood – or even the wider community – found a stray cat or dog they knew it would find a home if they just dropped it off on the front porch of Raphael and Frances Mark.
I tell my daughter Emily these stories and she thinks it sounds like a wonderful paradise but it wasn’t always a lot of fun. I came to actually hate the cats because they were the most persistent presence. I’d open a kitchen cabinet in the morning for a bowl or plate and there was a cat in there looking down at me. Going to sit down at the dining room table I’d have to remove a cat from the chair – sometimes two. Cats on top of the TV, on the couches, on top of the refrigerator, on the stairs, under the coat rack, on the radiators; they were everywhere like some awful vermin. A friend of mine (and cat lover), Betsy Jacobs, told me my problem wasn’t the number of cats but that I just hadn’t found my own; I had no idea what she meant.
One New Year’s Eve, we all came back from dinner out to find the latest surprise on the front porch: a large black cat with enormous golden eyes and red ribbon tied around his neck. He was in pretty poor shape, his coat worn and dirty, and his tail was broken, twitching back and forth at an odd angle like some misshapen shepherd’s crook. Of course, there was no question what would happen next and my mother went to pick him up and bring him inside but he wasn’t having it. He backed away, hissing and growling, into a corner of the porch. The last thing I wanted was another cat but I did want to help Ma and so got down on the cat’s level and talked to him until he walked toward me and I picked him up. I carried him inside and got him some food and he calmed down a bit until my brother Jason sat down near him; then he attacked. He grabbed at Jace’s hand, scratched furiously, and then shot under a bureau in the dining room where he glowered and hissed at us. Jace said, “That thing’s like an assassin. You ought to name him Carlos” referring to a villain in a novel that was popular at the time. The name stuck; and the cat stuck to me.
Since I was the only one who could handle him without being mauled, he wound up in my room and became my cat. He wasn’t like the other cats in the house. He would entertain by leaping from the top of my bookshelf to the top of my open door and do a little tightrope walk across it, back and forth, before hopping down. He was a great nuzzler and loved to sit on my lap while I read. Every night he’d jump up on the bed when it was time to sleep and, if I stayed too long at my desk working on something, he’d hop up and knock my pen away to let me know it was getting late.
He was also an uncanny judge of people. He warmed up to Jace finally but I learned to trust his judgments about new friends I’d have over; if Carlos liked them, they were worth the time and, if he didn’t, they usually wound up being a huge mistake. He liked most of my friends but was especially fond of Betsy. Carlos lived a life of luxury there in my room and wasn’t inclined to exert himself very often but he always got up when Betsy visited, hopped onto this little table at the end of my bed for her to pet, and sometimes even climbed up on her shoulder. I knew I liked Betsy even without Carlos’ approval but it was still nice to have it.
Carlos liked Betsy so much that, when I got a letter from her, he would purr and sit in my lap while I read it; if I got a letter from anyone else, he either wouldn’t come near or, sometimes, would slap at it. If he didn’t like someone, he wasn’t at all shy about showing it by allowing them to come near and then latching himself onto their hand, biting and scratching but, when someone met with his approval, he was the sweetest gentleman and most caring friend. When I was sick with mono this one time, he wouldn’t leave me, not even to eat or drink, and when I’d come home from school at the end of the day, he’d jump off the bed and trot over to greet me at the door. He liked it even better when I’d come home with Betsy and he’d climb up on her shoulder and nuzzle her ear.
She said one time, “See? I told you. You just had to find your own cat” and I realized she was right. Without even knowing I was doing it, I’d been much kinder and more affectionate with the brood of cats around the house. Getting to know Carlos allowed me to recognize the personalities of the other cats. They weren’t just obstacles to sitting, walking, or eating anymore; Sam favored the top of the refrigerator because it was warm, Dwarfy liked laps because she was a people-cat, Mama liked the radiator in the downstairs hall because no one bothered her there.
Carlos was especially pleased when Betsy and I started dating and she spent even more time at the house. If I tried playing a board game with anyone else in my room the cat would walk all over it and actually kick the pieces; when Betsy came, though, he just curled up between us and watched until he became bored and fell asleep. Carlos opened the world of cats up for me and showed me how fascinating, warm, and wonderful they can be. He was long gone by the time Betsy and I got married but he lived on in the first gift I gave her in our first apartment: a small, black kitten.
END
The Chance to Follow my Dreams
I always wanted to be a writer. Some of my earliest memories are of Ma reading me stories and poems and telling me about the lives of my favorite writers and poets like Robert Louis Stevenson, Tennyson, and Malory. I had my first story published when I was eight years old – a little piece about my Basset Hound Milkbone – and I could not have been happier. I was always writing, always telling my friends stories, but to actually be “a writer” seemed impossible to me. Even though my friends and family were always very encouraging, I didn’t think my work was anything special and I certainly didn’t think of myself as a writer.
All through high school I contributed pieces to the literary magazine and I went on to college to learn how to be a writer. I wanted to study all the great works of literature and see how other writers had told their stories but, the more I read, the more impossible it seemed that I could ever be one of them.
In the course of my studies, I found I had a talent for critical interpretation and public speaking and, before I even understood what was happening, I found I’d been turned into a scholar, not a writer. I went on to graduate school, taught entry-level composition courses, and then began a career as a college instructor. I loved the work in the classroom and enjoyed pretty much every minute working with my students but at the back of my mind I could sometimes catch a glimpse of the ghost of my former self, the little boy happily reading his story about his dog, who had wanted to be a writer.
I was offered a position with the University of Maryland’s European Division, a program the school ran in conjunction with the Department of Defense to provide college courses for military personnel serving overseas, and I took it. I had only been teaching a few years and the offer was quite an honor and also, of course, there was the opportunity to travel in Europe. I was married by this time to my best friend, Betsy, and she was as excited about the whole adventure as I was but, even as I signed the contract, I felt this dropping disappointment in the pit of my stomach as though I were signing away something I’d never wanted to lose.
It was at this point that I was given the best advice I ever heard. At the time, I had no idea what to do with it but I never forgot it – and it changed my life.
I was sitting outside of my mother’s house with my younger brother Jason and we were talking about my new position and how I’d be leaving soon for Europe. Jason and I had always been close and I knew I would miss him more than anyone else once I left the USA and this feeling of loss brought to the surface those others of surrendering my early dreams for a comfortable career as a college instructor. I hadn’t told anyone how I was feeling because it seemed so selfish and silly. What did I have to complain about? I was about to leave for a job which would take me to places I had always wanted to visit, and a job I genuinely loved and was good at, and I felt ashamed to be feeling ungrateful for the opportunity.
Even so, that day when we were sitting out back together, I heard myself suddenly telling him exactly what I was thinking and feeling about sacrificing what I’d always dreamed of because I didn’t feel I could ever succeed at it, how writers were exceptional people and I wasn’t and didn’t see how I would ever be but, still, that I felt I had quit something important before I even allowed myself to begin it.
Jason sat a moment and then said, “I think you’re already a writer. You’re the only one who doesn’t. Sure, writers are special people but so is everyone. What’s a writer? Someone who writes. You want to write professionally? What’s stopping you? You think a writer is “somebody” but, you know what? You’re somebody. You’re somebody, too.”
I thanked him for the advice but I didn’t really believe it. Maybe I could write but I was no Hemingway. Betsy and I left for Europe and I taught in Germany and then Greece and then Germany again, traveled through Egypt, went to Paris and plenty of other places. My job was even better than I’d imagined it would be when I was back in the States but I wasn’t happy. I certainly did my best to enjoy and appreciate everything as much as I could but, at the end of an evening when I was all alone, I had to admit to myself that this wasn’t what I wanted to be doing with my life.
And that’s when I remembered Jason’s advice – “What’s stopping you? You think a writer is “somebody” but, you know what? You’re somebody, too.”
That night I told Betsy that I wanted to finish out the term I was teaching and then return home, get a simple 9-5 job, and give myself the chance to become a writer. She supported me completely, much to her credit, and when the term ended we came back to the United States. I got a job working in the basement of the County Office Building and I wrote every day. I wrote in the morning before work, during morning, lunch, and afternoon breaks, and in the evenings after dinner. I kept a journal, I tried writing scripts, attempted novels, wrote short stories, poems, song lyrics, articles, working and working to learn the craft of writing and, after a year, I had a handful of short pieces I felt were good enough to publish.
I think too often we give up on our dreams because we think they’re impossible without ever giving ourselves the chance to find out. Once I started pitching stories for publication I found markets for them within a month. I published a few articles afterwards and then some other stories and, when I was satisfied that I could call myself a writer, I returned to teaching at a local college.
I continued to write and publish and, a few years later, was contacted by Mr. Jan van der Crabben who was starting up a history web site and invited me to contribute. I’ve been writing for Ancient History Encyclopedia ever since and have published over 500 articles on that site alone, not to mention on other sites and in magazines. None of that would have happened if I hadn’t given myself the chance to follow my dreams but that chance was only possible because of the best advice I ever heard – when my little brother assured me that I was somebody too.
END
The Greatest Lesson Learned
I didn’t want to bring home a dog; it was the furthest thing from my mind. My previous dog was a great and gentle Doberman named Calhoun. For ten years we’d had adventures together and, after he died of cancer, I had no interest in replacing him. My daughter Emily had other plans, however, and that girl – who was only seven at the time – could be very persuasive.
And so it was that on a hot August day, when I still maintained I had no desire to bring home a dog, that I found myself with Emily and my wife Betsy driving to the animal shelter an hour away to look at some puppies. Betsy and Emily picked her out: a small white shy thing with large brown eyes and droopy ears, a lab-greyhound mix. We named her Sophia but she preferred `Sophie the Dog’ when called, or just `Dog’.
Emily gave us the speech every parent has heard concerning a dog: “I’ll keep it in my room and take care of it and walk it every day” but, since I worked from home mornings and taught classes only in the afternoons, that turned out to be my job from Day 1. I slept downstairs on the couch the first night, and many nights after, with Sophie nearby in her crate. She was scared and I took the soft, shaking pup out and let her sleep with me or put my finger through the crate’s grill to pet her until she slept. I was a goner by the end of the first night she was with us.
Soon, it seemed, she had always been a part of our family and I couldn’t remember what it had been like not having a dog in the house. I realized I hadn’t replaced Calhoun, I’d honored his memory in giving a good home to another dog who needed one; but that wasn’t the last or the largest lesson I learned from Sophie the Dog.
Two months after she came to live with us my mother was killed in a car accident. Ma and I were very close and I felt shattered by her death. In the mornings, after Betsy and Emily had left for work and school, instead of getting to my writing, all I could do was stare into space. I felt stunned by Ma’s death and that feeling seemed as though it was going to last the rest of my life.
Sophie, however, was not interested in watching me stare into space. She would nudge me to take her out and, once we were at the park, she would annoy me until I played with her. I’d trained her to walk off-leash and she’d run in circles around me, pick up a stick and drop it at my feet and, when I’d throw it for her to catch, she’d leap high in the air, snatch it and run back to smack me in the leg with the thing before running off again so I’d chase her.
She led me down forest paths I’d never explored and took me to ruins of old estates and silos in the woods I never knew were there. Some days we’d spend two hours out roaming and exploring the hiking trails around the village. When we came back home, she’d sit by my chair and put her head on my foot or rest it against my leg and it was so reassuring to feel her there, to be able to reach down and pet her soft head and see her look up at me with her dark, kind eyes. I learned from her that life goes on, no matter what kind of tragedy knocks you down, and that it can be good again even if it can never be the same.
That particular lesson I learned from her multiple times through many different events. When Betsy’s breast cancer returned and she had to go through surgery and chemo again, when Emily suddenly grew up overnight and didn’t want to hang out with her dad as much anymore, when any sorrow or uncertainty came my way – there was always Sophie the Dog with her bright eyes, wagging her tail, telling me it was time to get up and go out and see what life had to offer. And so we did; we played so much over the years, the four of us. Emily grew up with Sophie and so did Betsy and I in our own way.
When Emily was twenty and about to leave home, she decided she wanted a dog to bring with her who would be as close a companion as Sophie had been. She went to the shelter and came home with a little mini pinscher named Monty who Sophie took to almost immediately. I’d been worried that maybe Sophie the Dog would feel she was being replaced and would be resentful but I should have known better; Sophie always welcomed anyone we welcomed to the house. When Monty arrived, he was a little unsure of the situation. He wouldn’t bark at all and didn’t want to eat much but it wasn’t long before Sophie had shown him that everything was all right and he could feel at home and relax.
Monty was with us for four months before the time came for Emily to head out on her own and they moved to Georgia. It was another difficult time as Betsy and I experienced the `empty nest’ syndrome but Sophie was there for us just as she’d always been. She was older now, thirteen, and not as keen on racing around with a stick or leading me on adventures through the woods or old ruins – but she was there with all her grace and her warmth and charm and love. It was impossible to remain depressed with Sophie around and, at the same time, so hard to think about how sad it would someday be when she was gone.
And, when she left us finally, it was very difficult but I could only be grateful for the many years we’d had together. Sophie had come into our lives completely unexpectedly and filled them with light and love and with laughter and I knew, all along, that this would not last and I needed to always be thankful for the time we had and the adventures we all shared together. After a few months, I went back to the shelter and got another little puppy we named Sammie, a soft, brown Beagle-Feist mix, and she lit up our home with her antics just as Sophie had done sixteen years earlier.
Life is change, it is perpetual change, and we all hate losing what we love. But I learned from Sophie that life goes on and, no matter what knocks you down, you need to get back up knowing that it can be good again, can be beautiful, even if it can never be the same.
END
Joshua J. Mark 