No Regrets

Michael once informed me that if the Pezzulos were a House on Game of Thrones, our House Sigil would be a dog, and our House Words would be “No Regrets.”

We’ve never owned a dog as a family. I never had one growing up. Michael had a puppy for a few weeks when he was very little, but besides that there were no pets except his mother’s parade of guinea pigs.

As for Rosie, all she longs for in the world are a dog and a baby brother.

The brother she may never get, for all I know. God performed a hat trick of miracles to bring Rosie to me: she was conceived by surprise when we were practicing NFP for my health’s sake, gestated nine months even though everything is wrong with my body, and survived a horrendous disaster birth which I’ve written about before.  He just might do the same for me again, but it’s not something I expect.

The dog is a gift we’ve promised Rosie after we move and if she demonstrates that she can keep her room clean. She asked if it could be a boy dog, so she can have a brother of sorts after all, and I said we’d try to get one. We’ve discussed rescuing a dog from the pound and how important it is to give animals their space. She asked if it could be a mutt named Ribsy like in her Beverly Cleary books, and I said we’d try for that too. We’ve spent many evenings scrolling through Google Image Search admiring photos of dogs and researching dog breeds. Rosie generously conceded that if we couldn’t find a mutt named Ribsy she would settle for a purebread beagle or a Labrador– as long as it was a boy.

We bought her a stuffed dog for Christmas, which she named Ribsy. She pours out her wooden counting tiles into dishes for Ribsy to eat, and drags him around on a jump rope leash. She’s remarkably patient about dangling a single counting tile in front of the motionless dog and coaxing him to sit, stay and come. Every time I put Ribsy on the sofa so I can vacuum the carpet, Rosie sternly puts him on the floor in the way because dogs aren’t allowed on the sofa.

One evening, while she and her father were putting together a puzzle, they got to talking.

“Did you have a brother when you were my age?” Rosie asked.

“Yes,” said Michael. “My brother Agnello. He was older than me, and I looked up to him. A lot of the way I am is because of my brother. He used to go for very long walks all over town and I would come along when I could– and that’s how I developed my love of walking, and that’s why I sometimes insist that you come on walks with me.”

“And you had a dog?”

“I had a puppy for a few weeks, but then it died.”

“What happened?”

Michael is not the type of grown-up to avoid talking to children about difficult things. “When I was a little younger than you, a family we know had a dog that had a big litter of puppies  they couldn’t afford to keep. They needed to find homes for the puppies, so they said that I could have one. But the one I liked best of all was very sick with worms – they gave him medicine, but they didn’t expect him to live. They thought they would just keep that one at home until he died. They warned me about that. But I had really fallen in love with that one, so they sent him home with me. He lived with me for about three weeks. I loved him very much. And then one morning I woke up and he didn’t.”

There was a pause.

“I don’t remember much from that time of my life,” Michael went on in the same calm tone, “but I remember how sad I was. I was terribly sad for a long time. And I’ve never really liked having pets ever since. But while the puppy lived, he had a place to live where he knew he was loved. And it was a good thing for me that I loved the puppy, even if it wasn’t for very long. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes,” said Rosie solemnly. “It was a good thing.”

No regrets.

(image via Pixabay)