Ode to Harmony

When I was 10 years old, I was living in Stockton Springs, Maine with my mother and my younger brother. One of the neighbours down the road a bit was a dear friend of the family’s who absolutely LOVES dogs. At the time she had a golden lab, a great dane, and a dachsund. (over the years it’s come to 5 dachsunds, but I digress.) On one of her travels through the country roads one day, she spotted a tagless stray dog caked in mud and… “horse mud”, and other such things that only a dog could lovingly appreciate. Well of course she had to help the guy, so she took him home, bathed him, maybe fed him, and took him to the local shelter. Unfortunately for the li’l guy, the shelter was jam packed full of other homeless dogs waiting for someone with love in their hearts to come rescue them. My mother’s friend then went to another shelter. It was also full. She went to one more shelter, and they had room to take him!…however if he didn’t find a home in 7 days, he would be euthanized.

My mother has never cared for animals in the home. “They scratch the doors, and marr the floors! They mess on the carpet! “They chew up your clothes, and besides, they’re too expensive! Who would care for a dog? Who would feed it? Brush it? Walk it? Bring it to the vet?”

My mother had many reasons for not liking dogs.

A day passed.

Another day passed.

5 more days passed.

Our friend went back to the shelter to see if he had been adopted yet. Alas, there he was still in the kennel, on his last day on this Earth.

On October 14th of that year, there was snow on the ground, and the air was crisp. I was just settling down to a lovely birthday dinner when there was a knocking at the door. It was my mom’s friend at the door! In she came, pulled by a force unseen due to many coats, and many hugs in all directions. Then I saw him.

“Wow!! What’s his name?” I asked, I was already familiar with the dogs of her own.

She had a huge smile across her face and joyfully exclaimed:

“You get to name him!” I thought this was a fantastic present, getting to name a dog! What an honor! She then told me “I personally call him Harmony, because of all the love and harmony that he’s brought into my house, but you don’t have to name him that if you don’t want to.” I nodded with approval and said “Harmony’s a good name.”

Then I heard something that I’ve been wishing for as many birthdays before as I can remember. “I’m glad you like him, he’s yours.”

I immediately turned to my mother for approval, permission, some acknowledgment that this either was or was not, a joke.

To my great surprise I saw her smile also.

“I thought you didn’t want to have a dog!” I said, surprised naturally! She DIDN’T want to have a dog! For years and years there were excuses carefully plotted out to foil the most articulate of “little girl questions”.

“Yeah well, when she came and showed me the dog she found, I started thinking about how nice it would be to have some company around, and he’s really sweet.”

Oh, and he WAS. Throughout the years, he’d do wonderful acts of doggie-kindness, like staying with you when he knew you were sad, or laying by you if you were sick, warming you if you were cold, or taking up most of the bed when he thought he was entitled to a good spot sometimes too! He’d chew things that would smell like you when you left, like the lid of an aspirin bottle, or a beloved toy, and he’d be hurt and angry if you accused him of something he didn’t do.

Even though he was “our dog” now, every time my mother’s friend visited, he’d yelp and bark, and scream and holler: “HELLO! I’M HERE! IT’S ME! IT’S YOU! REMEMBER ME? DO YA? HUH? HUH? HUH? HELLO? HEY!” and he would jump and kiss and yelp and bark for HOURS if we let him.

He never forgot what that wonderful woman did for him.

Throughout the years I went to college, 4 years away from my dog, and I always had a sneaking suspicion somehow, for some reason, that he would die when I was 21. And one day I got a phone call. Today, I don’t remember if it was my 19 year old younger brother, or my father, but between the two men in the house, I’ll be damned if both of their voices weren’t choked with tears.

“Harmony’s run away.” He said.

“Well I’m sure he’ll turn up, he always runs away and comes back the next morning. He’s probably just playing with the cows down the road.”

“He’s been gone for three days.”

Now the tears were in my eyes, and it was my voice that cracked. “I’ll be right there to come look for him”.

“We’ve already put up posters and looked in the woods.”

I’ll be home soon. He’s my dog, I need to go look for him.”

I drove from college to home in a little under two hours. When I got there, I marched right up to the forest, and entered the swamp at the first ravine, expecting him to pop out and say “OH here I am! I was just kidding, let’s go home.” I called, and called, and called. Then I remembered that calling his name insinuated that he was in trouble, and I was more apt to get results with a more positive approach. “WANNA GO FOR A RIDE??” I hollered in the forest. 10, 15, 20 times I called him “WANNA TREAT?” “WANNA GO FOR A WALK?” Which of course is silly, because he’s already on a walk, but you know dogs, they just like the rewards and the attention, so saying “wanna go for a walk” while on a walk will still get their tails wagging.

If I ever learned anything in school, it was this, from a fellow classmate.
“If you ever lose something, pray to St. Anthony, and he will help you find it.” I have never prayed harder in my life.

“What if he’s with another family? What if he is just lying dead in the street somewhere? What if the family who runs the cow farm finally shot him? What if he left us forever? How will he eat? Why won’t he come home?”

All I wanted was an answer. Just the uncertainty was killing me.
“Please St. Anthony, please let me find my dog. Whether he’s alive, or if he’s dead, I just want to find him. Amen.”

I marched through lots of woods that day, if it wasn’t such a terrifying occasion, it would have been a beautiful walk. I even stopped at the irritated farmer’s house to see if he had seen Harmony bullying his cattle. Unfortunately, I had no luck.

I spent the night there, as it was already late in the spring sky.
I prayed again, to whomever would listen, to please let me find my dog.

The next morning returned no results either. I don’t recall where I went that day, if I did some errands, or if I just putzed around doing nothing in particular, but when I came home my father said they had found Harmony. After all my searching and all my prayer, they had found him resting underneath a neighbour’s tree. Such a fitting place, always in the shade in places he wasn’t supposed to be. My father and my brother took some lawn chairs out to the edge of the woods, cleared a spot and planted some things. My brother dug a very large hole, something he was always very talented at. Unfortunately his talents came in very handy. We buried Harmony in that spot by the woods, with the little lawn chairs to go for a visit.

For months and months on end, all I could hear was the jingle of his collar as he’d come up the basement steps, or his soft footprints trying to sleep on my father’s warm waterbed. I told my father one day “I swear, I keep thinking I hear him coming upstairs from the basement.” You could see the tears come to his eyes as he said “I know, I do too.”

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For some reason, the second one just insisted on being a blurry thumbnail in the post. Go figure.  Click the link to check out what will be my beautiful socks.  I can not WAIT to knit with this stuff!!  I really hope I hurry up and get it already!

I SERIOUSLY cannot wait! This is driving me nuts! I just sent the payment last night, I can’t believe they’re coming!!

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EEP! I did it! I can’t believe I splurged on some yarn for myself.  I just have to get rid of all this other yarn that I have.  I can’t believe all the junk I have lying around the house.  Baby blue acrylic, Paton’s rumour that doesn’t want to turn into ANYTHING,  tons of cotton I bought while smitten with Mason Dixon’s “warshrags” (still am a little), and a sweater’s worth of wool frogged in multi-sized balls.  ACK!

Thank God for the 3 skeins of Lorna’s Laces lion and lamb coming to me!  and for the 2 skeins of Lorna’s Laces shepherd sock!  I can’t wait to send out the money and get the package!…that is, if my husband doesn’t kill me first!