It’s Good to Have A Dog

Because we can’t get delivery here in Montana, I get the Sunday New York Times a week late. It usually comes on Thursday or Friday and I save it so I have a Times to read on Sunday morning. This is what two years of one’s youth spent in Manhattan will get you — a lifetime addiction to a big fat Sunday paper.

So Sunday I was reading the Style section and there, in the Weddings, was my cousin George on his father’s vintage motorcycle with Jen, who is now his wife. It’s a really cute picture and I tossed it aside thinking “Patrick will love this.” It was a good ten minutes before I realized what I’d done. That Patrick wasn’t going to be coming by later that day, and so I had a little crying fit because I’m really quite sad right now about the whole thing.

So I’m on the couch crying and Owen, my puppy, my perfect, 35-pound French Brittany spaniel jumped up next to me and started licking my head. Licking my hands over my eyes, licking my ears, licking my head like he knows somehow that this is his job in the universe, as though his whole reason for being on the planet this time around is to save me from my sorrow. Which he did, because it’s really hard to keep crying when you have a frantic year-old dog licking your head, your hands, whatever parts of you he can get his tongue on. He licked at me until I started to giggle through my tears, and remembered that although I am sad, I am also still here, still kicking, and still loved by among others, my fabulous little dog. (So now I guess I’m going to have to learn to hunt birds for the little guy.)