Be as good as your dog

Talk about an ego booster.

Seventeen years ago, I was a frequent visitor to House of Blessings at #4 Rue Sambour, Port-au-Prince. In large part, I availed myself of the hospitality of Phil and Lonnie Murphy, whom I had adopted as family while I was in Haiti. ("Abused" might be a better word, but I like to think that I made up for it after my return to the E.U., when I steered some support their way from the Christian school where I was teaching.)

But aside from my time with the Murphys, I put in some time with the children there as well. In particular, I paid attention to Steve and Isaac Adrien, a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old pair of brothers who had just arrived. I played with them, talked with them, and would gladly have taken them home had it been possible and realistic. (It was neither.)

I spoke for a while with Steve, during our recent September visit to Haiti. Now 19, Steve hopes in early 2012 to begin attending a unversity in Missouri, where he plans to major in business administration, so he can return to Haiti and make a difference to his people. I felt a sort of distant pride in him, aware of how much I had loved the little kid he once had been, but also aware how little I'd had to do with the man he was becoming.

Steve also told me that he had recognized me last March when he had been at the Cradle of Life Crisis Relief Center. Like me, he had volunteered with the relief efforts; and while we were there, he had been plagued by the thought that he knew me, but for the life of him, he couldn't recall why.

And then last August I led a team to Callebasse to build houses while we stayed at House of Blessings, and it clicked.

So, reader, be assured of this: If you pour your life and your love into someone, they will remember you.

* * *

Several others who had been associated with House of Blessings in 1994 still are connected with it, and I spoke with them while were in Haiti in September -- Wislande, Tania and Woody all believe me when I say I was there, even though they don't remember me.

After I left in 1994, Phil took in my dog for a month or so, until they were unable to keep him any longer. Ajax was a mountain of a dog, an indomitable Labdrador retriever, rising up over everyone, a mighty river coursing the length of his large pink tongue. He one of the best dogs I've ever known.

They all remember my dog.

And all this goes to prove that if you love someone deeply, you can mean as much to them and make as big a difference in their lives, as your dog.




Copyright © 2011 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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losing man's best friend

"Of course you have to work hard to offend Christians. By nature Christians are the most forgiving, understanding and thoughtful group of people I've ever dealt with. They never assume the worst at the get-go, they appreciate the importance of having different perspectives, they're slow to anger, quick to forgive and almost never make rash judgments or act in anything less than a spirit of total love.

"No, wait -- I'm thinking of Labrador retrievers."

I wrote that in 1998, after a friend of mine was catching grief over the jokes he had been including in his "Fishers of Grin" humor mailing for About.com. Everyone gets the dig about Christians and our often-graceless manner, but what I've always enjoyed about it is its dead-on depictions of Labs. They really are a saintly breed.

I bought my second black Lab in late 1994, when I was living in Bethlehem, Pa. I recently had returned from living as a missionary in Haiti, where I had been forced to leave behind my previous dog, also a black Lab.

Once I bought Hamlet, we were inseparable. I took him with me all around the Lehigh Valley. He accompanied me when I went to visit my family in Pittsburgh, and he always came up to Lafayette College from 1995 to 1997, when we would visit my girlfriend during her undergraduate days there. Everybody knew him as the dog who spoke Haitian Kreyol, because that was the language I had used to train him.

Hamlet was the first dog of mine ever to have his own entry in the phone book -- Ma Bell gave me two entries for the same flat rate, and who was I to waste one of them? -- and also the first dog of mine ever to be listed as a friend of a church I was attending. (I don't think the elders were amused when they found out.)

He was a brilliant, stubborn, energetic and often destructive dog. He chewed holes in furniture, ripped up favorite books of mine, and broke out of his cage I don't know how many times, even when it was padlocked.

He also played a part in my romance with my girlfriend, whom I later married. One time the three of us were walking along a stream in Bethlehem, and Hamlet -- off his leash and galavanting along the streambed as he was wont to do -- wouldn't come back. So I threatened that if he didn't come back, I would push her into the water. She had enough time to voice a quick protest, and then I delivered on what I had promised.

Walking him was an experience -- I swear he made my arm a good six inches longer as he pulled at the leash with all the force of a man o'war -- but it was also invariably a pleasant one, since through Hamlet I discovered the other inhabitants of Easton, from the other dog owners out for a stroll in the morning, to the children who wanted to play with him, to the homeless man who stopped to scratch him behind the ears.

I don't think I've ever loved a dog more than I loved him.

About six years ago, when my wife and I got an apartment here in Nova Bastille, we realized we didn't have enough space for him. Labs are made to run, and our apartment had no yard and even less free space inside.

So Hamlet moved in with my parents, who have a huge yard and who discovered they enjoyed having a dog again. If he had a good life with me, he's had a great one with my parents, and they've enjoyed having him around as well.

Because Hamlet was born on Halloween, my father has developed a tradition of having trick-or-treaters sing "Happy birthday" to Hamlet before they can have any of the treats being passed out to celebrate. I'm told Hamlet's birthday is a hit with children all around the neighborhood.

Nothing good lasts forever. Now a little more than 10 years old, Hamlet has been in a lot of pain lately. He has no interest in eating, doesn't like to walk, and spends most of his time lying around and licking his leg. Friday night, the vet announced he had found a malignant and inoperable cancer behind one of Hamlet's hips.

I love him, and can't let him go on suffering each day. I'm probably going to call my parents on Saturday and tell them to go ahead and have him put down.

We're planning to visit my parents for Christmas, and my daughter loves seeing Hamlet, who admittedly is a lot more fun to play with than our dog Sandy, the dog we have here in our home.

I don't want to have to tell her that Hamlet has died, and that he won't be there for her on Christmas. I want to give her one last time to see him and play with him, and I want that for myself too. I want to be there with him, and hold him one last time as he goes to sleep, so he knows that he's loved, even as he drifts off.

It's not going to happen, and that really bites.



Copyright © 2004 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Psst! I totally stole this from Brucker.