True Bestfriends
I don’t buy books anymore. I go online and reserve them on nypl.org and they email me when it is available at my library branch. I had reserved the book “Marley and Me” probably three months ago. I couldn’t believe why the cue was so long. Until last week, I was still #559 and the book was still with borrower #332. So when I went to Barnes and Noble last week I decided to get a copy of the book and brought it home.
During the long Labor Day weekend, I had taken it with me and fell in love with the sloppy Lab Retriever named Marley. Marley is clumsy, psychotic, almost retarded pet but an ever loyal and loving pet and the conditional love that he had shared with his family. Tonight after I finished the book I lay in my bed looking up at the ceiling and reminisced the many dogs I have had growing up and the memories that they had left with us. Despite that dogs are as individual as each person are, in all our dogs were a bit of Marley in many different ways. When the author, John Grogan related how the Lab had used all every ounce of determination to meet him at the door (as he always does) when it was struggling with debilitating arthritis, it was our St. Bernard, Boots who in the middle of giving birth got up to greet my dad when he came home from work (as she always does). When it was the mischievousness of tugging at the end of the toilet paper roll and then running into the room, it was our favorite Silky Terrier, Spock. When it came to their fierce loyalty and protectiveness, it was the Japanese Spitz Cookie and our part-time mutt at the farm, Whitey who ensured strangers kept their distance from us when we stayed on the beach away from the house after the sun had set.
The book have lit up that part of my soul that I had let slip away. The appreciation for the love and dedication of the purest kind. I miss the many dogs with whom I had shared many secrets with, cried about ex-boyfriends with and just maltreated with cruel high-pitched screaming when there was no one else to blame for the misery that ladens a young adolescent ugly duckling in transition (still awaiting full transformation, by the way, 20 years later).
Of course, I could get a dog in New York. I just don’t think it would be practical and fair for the animal. My lifestyle doesn’t encourage another dependent. I don’t think I have the time and resources. Dogs need to be walked – regardless of the weather, in the morning and at night. I don’t even know what time I will go home until I am home! Dogs need consistency that I cannot have. And when they do their thing, New York law requires owners to pick it up from the sidewalks and to throw it in the trash. I am major squimish. They need food, medical attention – all additional expense, and a slice I cannot find from my already stretched paycheck. And when I make my annual sojourn to Manila, who will look after it for 4 weeks? My plants would die every time I go home to the Philippines if I didn’t bring it to the office and remind people to water it!
But I miss having a dog, a loyal someone who would surrender himself and love unconditionally. Nothing puts it more precisely than how John Grogan had closed his story about his 13 year old Marley:
“… was it possible for a dog ... to point humans to the things that really mattered in life? I believed it was. Loyalty. Courage. Devotion. Simplicity. Joy. And the things that did not matter, too. A dog has no use for fancy cars or big homes or designer clothes. Status symbols mean nothing to him. A waterlogged stick will do just fine. A dog judges other not by their color, creed or class but by who they are inside. A dog doesn’t care if you are rich or poor, educated or illiterate, clever or dull. Give him your heart and he will give you’re his. It was really quite simple, and yet we humans, so much wiser and more sophisticated, have always had trouble figuring out what really counts and what does not….sometimes it took a dog with bad breath, worse manners and pure intentions to help us see.”
Blogger's note: After you have read his book, don't forget to vote for it for the Quill Awards, you have until 30 September to give it the acclaim it deserves!
More of Marley the dog! (scenes from the movie he 'starred' in!)
During the long Labor Day weekend, I had taken it with me and fell in love with the sloppy Lab Retriever named Marley. Marley is clumsy, psychotic, almost retarded pet but an ever loyal and loving pet and the conditional love that he had shared with his family. Tonight after I finished the book I lay in my bed looking up at the ceiling and reminisced the many dogs I have had growing up and the memories that they had left with us. Despite that dogs are as individual as each person are, in all our dogs were a bit of Marley in many different ways. When the author, John Grogan related how the Lab had used all every ounce of determination to meet him at the door (as he always does) when it was struggling with debilitating arthritis, it was our St. Bernard, Boots who in the middle of giving birth got up to greet my dad when he came home from work (as she always does). When it was the mischievousness of tugging at the end of the toilet paper roll and then running into the room, it was our favorite Silky Terrier, Spock. When it came to their fierce loyalty and protectiveness, it was the Japanese Spitz Cookie and our part-time mutt at the farm, Whitey who ensured strangers kept their distance from us when we stayed on the beach away from the house after the sun had set.
The book have lit up that part of my soul that I had let slip away. The appreciation for the love and dedication of the purest kind. I miss the many dogs with whom I had shared many secrets with, cried about ex-boyfriends with and just maltreated with cruel high-pitched screaming when there was no one else to blame for the misery that ladens a young adolescent ugly duckling in transition (still awaiting full transformation, by the way, 20 years later).
Of course, I could get a dog in New York. I just don’t think it would be practical and fair for the animal. My lifestyle doesn’t encourage another dependent. I don’t think I have the time and resources. Dogs need to be walked – regardless of the weather, in the morning and at night. I don’t even know what time I will go home until I am home! Dogs need consistency that I cannot have. And when they do their thing, New York law requires owners to pick it up from the sidewalks and to throw it in the trash. I am major squimish. They need food, medical attention – all additional expense, and a slice I cannot find from my already stretched paycheck. And when I make my annual sojourn to Manila, who will look after it for 4 weeks? My plants would die every time I go home to the Philippines if I didn’t bring it to the office and remind people to water it!
But I miss having a dog, a loyal someone who would surrender himself and love unconditionally. Nothing puts it more precisely than how John Grogan had closed his story about his 13 year old Marley:
“… was it possible for a dog ... to point humans to the things that really mattered in life? I believed it was. Loyalty. Courage. Devotion. Simplicity. Joy. And the things that did not matter, too. A dog has no use for fancy cars or big homes or designer clothes. Status symbols mean nothing to him. A waterlogged stick will do just fine. A dog judges other not by their color, creed or class but by who they are inside. A dog doesn’t care if you are rich or poor, educated or illiterate, clever or dull. Give him your heart and he will give you’re his. It was really quite simple, and yet we humans, so much wiser and more sophisticated, have always had trouble figuring out what really counts and what does not….sometimes it took a dog with bad breath, worse manners and pure intentions to help us see.”
Blogger's note: After you have read his book, don't forget to vote for it for the Quill Awards, you have until 30 September to give it the acclaim it deserves!
More of Marley the dog! (scenes from the movie he 'starred' in!)