On Memory

We Surrendered

Part Four of a Four Part Series on Memory

Our family adopted a dog recently, a pit bull whom we named Otis. He stayed with my kid’s mom and his eyes were the color of wheat. He was quiet and so sweet that it was almost like there was something wrong with him. When I pet him he placed his entire bovine head on my lap as if my body were a home to him. He did not bark. His ears had very small nicks in them. He was very skinny. You could see his ribs and muscles. We joked that he was awkward. Secretly he always seemed to me to be on the verge of tears, which is a funny thing to think about a dog. Maybe it was that looking into his eyes put me to the verge of tears. We knew he had been surrendered but we did not know why.

Our family grew to love him. He would climb on my daughter’s bed while she did homework, warming himself in the heat from her laptop. My kids mom would take him on long walks every morning and every evening, 40 minutes a pop, up the hills and down other hills. He needed wearing out, and in a sense so did she. He climbed the hills around the lake with ease, mostly avoiding other dogs with whom he seemed to have a contentious relationship. Instead he busied himself with flowers and grasses, rosemary bushes and the occasional cala lily.

He could become aggressive with other dogs on rare occasions, and we kept the occasions rare because he was able to do so much damage. When you love someone as we loved him, you want to protect them, even from themselves…