The Memorial

A priest once told me “ All prayers are answered, some are answered with yes, some are answered with no, and others are answered in a way that you don’t want”, as I stood outside the monastery, waiting for my mom to come to the phone, I knew that something was wrong. I knew it in my gut, I knew it in my heart, and I knew it in my bones. I just didn’t know what had happened. I guess it was Johns voice, the timbre to it, that unique suppression in a persons voice that is trying to maintain a calm and at the same time unable to hide the fact that bad news is about to come. I prepared myself for the news as the phone shifted from john to mom. “ Hi honey, how are you doing”, she said and by her voice I knew that somehow it had involved death. I had heard that timbre that tone that voice only four times, but I had never forgotten it. I suddenly worried that grandma or grandpa had died I prayed that it wasn’t an immediate family member. “ I'm ok mom what's up is everything ok”. “ I got some bad news about Luke”, my heart sank. It wasn’t an abstract family member someone I could easily disassociate into a unique piece of datum. It wasn’t a member of my family, it wasn’t even my ex-wife. In many ways I knew at that moment it was my own child, my baby, my tiddle, my little one. “ He got out of the back yard and must have strayed on to the main street. Ritchie found him on his way home from work, he says that it was most likely a quick death and a painless death”. My heart sank, I found myself violently rammed into that state of unreality that only occurs when you are shocked beyond your minds ability to cope. “ How did it happen”, “ well apparently he had been trying to dig a hole under the fence and Ritchie had put a big rock there to prevent him from digging any more and, it looks like Luke chewed and broke through the fence”. I had seen him working on that hole before I left but it looked like all he really wanted was to be able to look at the front and see what was going on. The ground was hard and I really didn’t see the possibility of him wanting to escape, he just wasn’t that kind of a dog. Then I thought about max. My mom had found a home for him four days earlier, and Luke was alone. Jessie had agreed to stay at the house more and comfort Luke until he got used to max not being there anymore. I thought that maybe he wanted to get out and try to find his brother; maybe he was lonely for the companionship of another like him. I felt guilty, I felt selfish, and I felt like there was no difference between me and whoever it was that had run over my baby. How dare I go to San Francisco and play monk while my family was left at home under the care of my parents, and niece. How dare I entrust it to someone else to find a home for my children. How dare I pawn my problems of on other people so that I can reach some high and mighty spiritual goal? I felt anything but spiritual at that time.

There is a saying that I know, it rang into my mind clearly at that point and drove home the reality that beating up on myself would accomplish nothing. “ We shall not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it”. I knew that this was now the past and there was nothing that I could do to change it. This thing this incident this point in time would now pass into the realm of lessons, or into the fools domain of things to repeat again. It didn’t mitigate the hurt it didn’t make my soul weep any less, but somehow I gave focus to a situation that could only be seen as a random act of insanity.

I want people to know who Luke was, I want you to see him though my eyes. The eyes of love and companionship. It was my ex wife’s birthday, I was trying to figure out a gift to give her to make her happy to mitigate a doomed marriage. To right an un-right able situation. I was bringing max home from the groomers, and a sign “ dogs for sale, was posted outside a church “, I had been thinking about getting another playmate for max. Dogs seem to do best in pairs. They can keep each other company and relate to each other in a way that humans cant. Sometimes a child or a ten year old can make a good playmate. Children and dogs seem to go good together, a magical combination of innocence and reality. I stopped there and I went to look at the dogs. They were all golden retrievers and yellow lab mixes. Some looked like one others looked like labs. But there was one there, I guess he was the runt or something he looked like a lab, but he was black with cute little white spots. I remembered my wife telling me about the dog that she had had when she was a kid. His name was Luke. I remember sensing the magic that she felt playing with him. And I saw that this would be a wonderful birthday present for her. I bought him while I was trying to ignore Max’s while barking, “ How dare you pet and cuddle another dog” there's only me. I brought him to the car and introduced him to his new brother. Both of them were confused and not knowing what to make of each other. Max had a certain degree of jealousy, and curiosity with a touch of well I might as well just get used to it now. He was scared, so recently separated from the security of his mother and his siblings. All the way home he curled up on my lap trying to find warmth and security there. I tried my best to give it to him. As I walked into the house I put max in the back yard and headed for the bedroom. My wife was sic that day. And I hoped that this might cheer her up. As I walked into the bedroom she looked at the puppy and then me. I saw the look of anger and frustration in her eyes the look of just another thing that she would have to deal with. Happy birthday I said. Her smile was icy, she looked angry and hurt. “ I kept remembering the stories you told about your first childhood dog and I realized that max could use a playmate to work out his extra energy, I know that its not a purebred lab but I'm sure that hell turn out to look like one”. “ Are you sure we should have another dog, the back yards a mess and I cant imagine what two dogs are going to do with it”. The back yard was a mess but that was because of the grading and not the dogs”. “Well its too late now I already bought him, and I cant take him back, I was thinking of naming him Luke after your first childhood dog”. She looked at me and was about to say something, but didn’t. I simply laid Luke next to her and left the room closing the door and letting nature, love and compassion take its course. An hour later I came back into the room and found Luke and Anne cuddle up next to each other fast asleep her hand gently resting on his belly. He had now become our child.

Luke went though the usual growing pains it was hard for him to be such a little puppy with max being such a big dog. But in spite of the difference in size Luke would always want to play with max and max would do his best and try to play with him. I think it was a baptism of fire for Luke to learn to cope with such a large and powerful dog he became one big powerful muscle with reflexes that used to shock me. As Luke grew up I began to fear more for max if the two got into a fight than Luke, I was sure that his reflexes and strength would win in the end over size. He had a timid ness at times though almost like he had been beaten. He would cower and act frightened and that concerned me. He didn’t like to cuddle either, or more appropriately he was like a cat and would only cuddle on his terms and when he wanted too. But at night he always slept on the bed all night touching both me and my wife with some part of his body. When the two dogs did eventually fight it became obvious that Luke was winning it was almost impossible for me to break them up. It took a week for me to establish my wife and I as the pack leaders. On top of everything else he had brains. He could open doors and he knew how to bark and beg on cue to get whatever he wanted. And like a spoiled first-born child he usually got it. It was hard on max though we always tried to give both of them the same amount of attention and love, but it always seemed as if Luke needed it more like he felt more human. We talked to him like he was a child. I was daddy and my wife was mommy. It was daddies home or mommies home. We even used to buy them Christmas and birthday presents. During the divorce we split the dogs. I took max and my wife took Luke, later I found out that Luke had gotten into a fight with my ex wife's aunts dog and she had put him into the pound. When I found out I went there immediately to get him back. I was hurt I was betrayed. When I entered the pound I was calm and yet angry. When I left the pound with Luke I was insane and homicidal. I had to look for him in all the kennels with all of the barking dogs by the time I found him I was literally running up and down the kennels screaming his name. He was in a kennel with four other dogs. In the corner shaking with fear and terror. I went in there and hugged I'm and kissed him telling him that it would be ok telling him that I would never abandon him again. It took a week for me to get him back to normal. It took a lot of time and allot of love and allot of patience. During that period of recovery we bonded in a way that we had never bonded before. And he truly became my dog. During the recovery I had max stay at my moms. When I put them back together they seemed to act at first like old friends who didn’t quite know how to address each other. But after a few minutes they were playing with each other like always. That bond though the bond that I had formed with him stayed. At night when we were sleeping he always had to have a part of his body touching me. And when I started to date again a girlfriend told me that she wouldn’t sleep with a dog on the bed, so I told her to leave. I would never abandon him again. We got along great and his shyness and timidity started to melt away. He was a strange looking dog though. You could see the Labrador in him but when the light hit him just right and he was in one of his moods he looked more like a black hyena on the Plaines of Africa than the domestic dog that he was. The day I left for the monastery he knew something was up. I could tell that he was worried that I was going away and maybe he knew that I would never see him again. That night he cuddled harder than usual. That morning he looked at me longingly out the window as my niece drove me to the train station. When I decided that I was going to have to stay here for an indefinite period of time I knew that I had to find a home for them. I asked my mom to help out and she was able to almost immediately find a home for max. There was a problem finding one for Luke though. He wasn’t a pure bred dog and I find the stupidity of such labels to be a travesty of our society. He was the hidden jewel, the purebred of heart. I began to pray for him. I dedicated my meditations to his finding a home and happiness, love and companionship. It became an obsession to me. Every sitting I would dedicate to him every prayer was that he finds a home. I would think about him at times I would think about the way that he was and how he would need love and caring. And I hoped that he was getting enough of it firm my niece. When I got that call I knew that in a way my prayer had been answered. I don’t think anyone could have loved him as much as I did, even myself. And maybe that was why the prayer was answered in the way that it was.