The Burden of Children

 

The first time the boys came racing through the dining room, nobody paid much attention. My mother halfheartedly told them to slow down.

The second time, she hollered at them but they ignored her.

The third time, Miz Hilda calmly stretched out her walking stick just as they barrel assed around her chair and sent them both flying. Although unhurt, both immediately burst into tears and began to wail like a pair of banshees.

“Hilda!” my mother protested but at the other end of the table, I could see my grandmother fiercely trying to smother a laugh.

“Children,” Miz Hilda said grimly, “particularly boys, are assuredly overrated. Get up, you young hooligans, and stop that hideous noise!”

“Hilda!” my mother repeated weakly but it was no good and she knew it. The former British nanny glared her into submission and she folded and staged a tearful retreat. Abandoned, the boys got to their feet and stood sullenly.

“You did that on purpose,” one of them muttered.

“I most certainly did and I can’t imagine any children more deserving,” Miz Hilda snapped impatiently, “This is a dining room not some barn on the prairie for mannerless, ill brought up street urchins! Take your rude, vulgar games outside this instant or mark my words, I’ll beat you both within an inch of your lives!”

They fled.

“I do apologize if I’ve overstepped, Alice,” Miz Hilda told my grandmother with a sigh, “But not being able to hear oneself think is simply not something to which I intend to become accustomed, however briefly. More tea, dear?”

Nana, now making no attempt to hide a smile, shook her head.

“If I’d had my cane, I might’ve tripped the little bastards myself,” she said mildly, “No harm done.”

Looking back, I have no doubt she meant every word. The boys were her grandsons and while she may have loved them, I knew she didn’t much like them. I think she saw too much of my grandfather in them – crude, coarse and common, as she’d once said when she thought no one was listening. When I was a little older, I began to realize that for my mother and possibly my grandmother as well, children were a by product of marriage, a requirement to be filled, almost a necessary evil. You married and you had children because that was the traditional thing to do. Wanting them was for other families.  

One Less Good Dog

 

He was old, overweight, clumsy, perpetually underfoot and a little dim.

He was also sweet-natured, patient, affectionate and (unless you were a cat) very mellow.

We are going to miss him terribly.

I found him on a chilly Sunday morning, lying on the rug in Michael's office, just exactly the way I'd found him asleep too many times to count. Only this time he didn't rouse, didn't sigh and stretch and slowly get to his feet.

He was, I realized in that fraction of a second before I reached down to shake him awake, dead. It appeared to have been peaceful and just before I began to cry, I had a moment of gratitude. I've lost count of the number of times I've prayed to God to take a sick little one in his or her sleep. This time, although the death was sudden and completely unexpected, God had apparently been watching, maybe even waiting.

I covered him with a blanket and sat down to think of what to do next. I couldn't quite bear the thought of calling Michael to let him know and besides it was barely 7 in the morning – there was no chance of getting Michael so early – but I also couldn't keep a dead dog laid out on the floor. Moving 70 pounds of pit bull was clearly not something I could do alone and even if I managed to get him outside, then what?

When Sweetie died, we called Nathaniel, the young man who tends the yard, and he came and dug the grave. I made the call and then called Michael.

I’m not one who favors big dogs but this one - so gentle and with such huge, soulful eyes - had always had special place in my heart. He was hard of hearing and his vision was bad, he often stumbled going up and down the steps, he had no sense of personal space and no idea of his size and weight. One swing of his head was enough to knock me off my feet and he terrorized passersby and mail carriers by his appearance alone but he loved people and was really not much more than a massive lapdog. Watching Nathaniel dig the grave was profoundly sad.

Rest in peace, old man. You were a fine dog and our lives won’t be the same without you.