Today, I had a flashback of an event that I was witness to as a kid growing up in my family’s home in Woodside, Queens. My aunt Sissy, one afternoon, found her brother and my uncle John sawing the legs of his bed in his apartment. “John, what are you doing??”…..My uncle, a very well mannered and quiet guy, looked at his sister and told my aunt to, politely, mind her business and he continued the job of sawing the legs of his bed. Now, this became a big deal…What was John doing? Why was he doing this? When my mom found out what he was doing, she calmly told me, my aunt and everyone else who thought that John had lost his mind that he was doing this for Trixie. Ah hah…it all made sense. You see, Trixie was John’s dog. A dog that joined our family in 1965 and who never left John’s side. Trixie, you see, was having a hard time, as she was getting older, making the leap into John’s bed so he did what what he thought best for his dog; he lowered the bed. That was the first time that I was witness to the love that exists between humans and dogs. Nobody can fully understand the meaning of love unless he’s owned a dog. A dog can show you more honest affection with a flick of their tail than a man can gather through a lifetime of handshakes.
Dogs come into our lives to teach us about love, they depart to teach us about loss. A new dog never replaces an old dog, it merely expands the heart. I’ve been lucky in my life because I have loved many dogs, almost as much as John loved Trixie.
If you have loved many dogs your heart is very big. Thanks, John…..
The Valley Viewpoint 