Memories From the Heart

We are born with this wonderful capacity to bond. The bond is what animates life and infuses it with joy, but also with sorrow over times of loss. When I think of miracles, I think of bonding and I celebrate the gift we humans receive when we also bond with those four-legged companions we call our pets. For me, by temperament and training, I feel closest to dogs—yes, my brother and I did have an orange striped cat named Spooky that ruled over our family with her regal presence during our youth, but it would be dogs that found their way into our hearts and home with regularity—Hobo stands out in my mind.
She came to us one day during our boyhood…. a motley canine vagabond, a proud Montanan by birth and resident of the Slack home by choice. She followed us to Hawaii to suffer through several months of quarantine as part of the state’s attempt to keep rabies out of the Hawaiian Islands. But, she weathered the incarceration and lived out her life basking in the sun, sharing her body with a village of fleas, those pesky parasites that relishes the balmy climate of Hawaii as much as we did.
Thinking back to those high school days I realize how important Hobo was to our mother. Her boys were off to school, her husband gone to work leaving her home empty…. if it weren’t for that black and white mongrel pet, Hobo. It was always mom who grieved the deepest whenever a pet was lost.