Once, a long time ago, I set the dinner table with five plates, used the big pot to boil potatoes and discreetly fed a wee black and white mutt named Barney scraps under the table.
Once, I lived in a house where the front entry was cluttered with running shoes and baseball gloves and bikes littered the front yard.
Once, three kids and a dog lived here.
It was fun. It was good, but, of course, nothing lasts forever and the kids grew up and moved out, taking their most precious belongings with them, and leaving the rest to gather dust for years and years in the basement.
I foolishly thought the dog, who was forever running around barking at nothing in particular in the back yard or dozing in the patch of sunlight that streamed through the living room window, would be one of those possessions that would remain with us forever.
It turned out he wasn’t.
Barney grew old. He grew feeble. And as the years passed he no longer ran around the back yard in circles barking joyously at nothing in particular.
And then one day, he simply wouldn’t get up. I took him to the vet, but, apparently his time here on earth with us was done. And, so I went home, put away his doggie dish and resolved to have no more pets.
But hoping, perhaps, to fill the gap left by a black and white mutt whose ghost still seemed to be running around in the back yard, we did have other dogs. But for some reason, none of them seemed to wiggle and squirm their way into our hearts like Barney.
Barney was part of peanut butter sandwich and Kool Aid summer days. He was mud and dirt and a tail that never quit wagging. He was backyard barbecues and campouts. He was a bundle of soft black fur and muddy paws across a clean kitchen floor. Mostly, Barney was simply our dog and we loved him.
And he loved us, too.
When I gave birth to my last child, Barney sat on the hospital steps, waiting. And, when we brought that tiny pink bundle home, all proud and happy, he was, too. And he growled fiercely when strangers so much as ventured a peek at what he considered his new treasure.
It was many, many years ago that a dog named Barney raced around our back yard barking furiously at nothing at all.
And, up until last week, Barney has remained a memory shrouded in cobwebs that I hadn’t brought out and dusted off for a very long time.
But, this week that all changed. And it changed because another dog has come into our lives. This week we have Marble.
Marble belongs to another family; a family whose front entry way is crowded with runners and whose front yard is littered with bikes. And he is part of the their summer days; peanut butter sandwiches and backyard barbecues and long, long walks.
But for two weeks, he is here, with us. The grandparents.
And it’s fun.
Marble is a bundle of soft fur that wiggles and squirms his way into your heart, refusing to budge.
Marble, who has a severe overbite and an annoying way of getting under your feet until you almost, but not quite, trip over him, epitomizes all the characteristics that ‘self help’ books encourage: friendliness, happiness, enthusiasm and curiosity.
I think Marble and I have bonded in the few days he has been with us.
And I’m pretty sure he likes me lots because my husband says he sleeps in the big chair by the front door until I come home.
And when I do come in, he’s up in a single bound, jumping around, licking me and wagging his tail furiously.
And he doesn’t even seem to mind that sometimes when I’m petting his soft, wiggly self, I forget his name.
And call him Barney.