Two Fridays ago I was writing an Uncle P’s Bedtime Story about Amazing Grace. My dog, Kramer, was around, and near, but I was far away, deep into the Land Of Thinking and Writing. I felt things when I wrote that story, because Amazing Grace does that to me, but I missed something going from right to wrong. Kramer was no longer around.
Flashlights in the night, walking and calling, making come-here sounds…and the next morning more and more…but no Kramer…
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It would be so-like God to have put Kramer and me together…
I was thawing from years of frozen, living in the country, keeping to myself, like some wounded animal. I had a dog named Bear, an Australian Shepherd, the peach of the litter, now a young stallion of a dog, and smarter than any animal I’d ever known.
Two houses away lived Kramer. There was trouble under that roof. There was anger, there was a divorce. The ex-wife, skin and bones, and full of hootch, came speeding down the road and hit my Bear. No apology, no help with the vet bills, not a word when I had to put Bear down…
She skipped rent and moved away, and just left Kramer behind, like you’d leave an old shoe… Kramer came my direction. I couldn’t see her for what she was, because she was draped in my anger for what her owner had done to my Bear.
I told God, “Okay, I’ll feed her, but I won’t pet her.”
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That didn’t last long.
Kramer liked me before I was smart enough to like her. I thought I needed a dog with some growl in it, and all Kramer had was kindness. I used to say that if you dropped Kramer into Palestine there would finally be peace in the Middle East.
We were good for each other, sensitive, like only two wounded souls can be.
I gave her room to be a dog, and I gave her safety, and we worked out a no leash relationship with so much trust that I took her on my junking journeys, used to walk Round Top and Canton like two friends on an adventure.
I got a scare last year, wrote a Bedtime Story called Kramer On The Down, written on a Sunday evening, Kramer in another room, sick, sick, sick, and me waiting for sunlight and a trip to the vet.
She sat on my lap in that waiting room and I petted her with urgency, thinking this might be it.
The sickness passed, but my thinking changed. She was an old dog now, and it was all grace from here on. It would cross my mind, at odd times, about where to bury her when the time came. I’d build her a fine box, out of honorable wood.
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And then, two weeks ago, about the time you were reading that Bedtime Story, she just wasn’t there…
Gone, gone where, gone how, gone why?
Just gone.
It’s hard to settle on a feeling when you-just-don’t-know…
I’ve written several Bedtime Stories since then. There were a lot of false starts, where I caught myself writing about Kramer, but something held me back, and I opened up a new document and wrote the story that you read instead.
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It took me a few days to tell people. I thought it considerate, to spare them, bear it alone…
My father was the Kramer feeder when I was out of town, and she treats him as the patriarch he deserves to be and he thinks of her as near family. I waited a few extra days to tell him.
Did the go-by-the-animal-shelter thing, did the spread-the-word-on-the-internet thing, did the staple-up-flyers thing, did the put-it-in-the-newspaper thing, did the drive-around-and-around-and-around thing…
And I prayed. I know losing an old dog friend doesn’t rate super high on things that need fixing down here, but I prayed anyway.
As the days went on it was starting to grind on me. Multiple times a day I’d have a fantasy moment of here-she-finally-is, just a soap bubble of hope that left a bad taste.
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Dad showed up at Eighty-one today. He asked about Kramer. I just shook my head.
“I’ve prayed about her,” he said.
A few hours later, the phone rang. Kramer had come home. Don’t think for a second that it ain’t crossed my mind, about Dad praying about her… The Padre carries some weight.
She’s got a limp, lost some pounds, dirty like you’d expect, seemed disoriented, but she’s home.
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One of my favorite parables of the Bible is The Prodigal Son. I liked it when I was a child, even with no understanding of going away, losing yourself, dragging bottom, and finally coming home, in humility.
I respect The Prodigal Son as an adult because I am One. I Know what I know, been where I’ve been, know in fact what others know only in think.
It is not meant for us to fall or fail, or lose our way, but some of us do, and His Power is displayed in love, restoration, redirection and healing…and making something useful from the crumble of us…
One of the titles for one of the stories that I was going to write about Kramer was It Isn’t Supposed To End Like This, and I am convulsed with thankfulness that God was kind enough to let my Prodigal Dog come home, to normal, so that it can end like it should end…a respectful ending…
I want to fatten her up, love her up, scratch her belly, enjoy every tail wag, for whatever is left of her time. I see her now as I’ve seen her for years, as a gift from God, and my, how Big He looks for ever putting us together in the first place, and putting us together again for her winter years.
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This edition of Uncle P’s Bedtime Stories is brought to you by Eighty-one, where we believe in Hope, and Him.
Uncle P’s Bedtime Stories appear in each issue of Lagniappe and three times a week on Eighty-one’s Facebook page. Uncle P can be reached at 81creativity@gmail.com.
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