Previously, my monthly newsletter had a section called "Your Monthly Baby" where I showcased a picture of my growing son. Now that he is not a baby, I write something about parenting instead, which I am posting retroactively here now. Subscribe to receive next month's essay along with book and music recommendations.
TW: The passing of my dog.
This space is normally reserved for me talking about my son, but I've been struggling a lot in the wake of losing my dog, Dillon, and felt it was just as appropriate to talk about him here. If you've paid any attention to me at all, you probably know he's been part of all my public bios for years; my rescue pit bull who, as I've repeatedly said, merely tolerated me, because he adored my husband. I always joked that to my dog, I was the Meredith Blake, trying to steal his dad/dearest love. I used to say he was a dog who behaved like a cat, in that he didn't technically care whether I lived or died so long as I didn't disrupt his one wild and precious. I made a lot of jokes about him over the years, and ultimately it's true, he didn't really like me. But I still chose him, and I still loved him, and I still miss him.
It was my dog who taught me that I could be a mom. I never used to want children--I spoke very candidly and seriously with both my mom and my husband about the possibility that motherhood was not for me over the course of my entire twenties. However, I had always wanted a dog. My parents claimed I wasn't responsible enough to have one, which was patently, perhaps even pathologically untrue; as the chairman of the league of eldest daughters, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more responsible child than me. But what I really wanted for most of my life was the sweet, doting, Disney-fied unconditional love of a dog.
I came across Dillon's picture on social media one day when I had to wait for my coworker (who used to work from 1-10pm, versus my very normal human hours of 8-5) to complete a project; I was scrolling from boredom, but also fate. I saw his face and I just knew. The adoption center told me he wasn't the best dog for a first time dog owner; he was dog aggressive and very, very anxious. They even gave me half off on the adoption fee because he had already been re-homed twice before we found him, and the future did not look good for him. My husband, a dog lover to his core, had only ever had small dogs before, and Dillon was... sizable. His head was huge. He could have easily taken both of us down if he had ever wanted to, and the first day alone with him, Mr. Blake texted me "I think this dog might want to kill me." We later learned that Dillon thought growling was a playful greeting, and that the thing we called his serial killer face was just a look he wore sometimes. We spent months and thousands on trying to train the dog aggression out of him, but he was just... nervous. And awkward and weird. And so we realized he would only have us, and that was difficult, but it would be okay. We would make it as good as we could for him.
Because less than a week in, he took naps with me on the couch, and seemed to seriously believe he was a lap dog. He was gentle with everyone, especially children (he didn't like my son too much when he eventually came along, but that was because the goblin prince, like me, was stealing Mr. Blake's devotion). Dillon really didn't like to comfort me--more than once he left the room when I was crying because it was apparently disruptive--and he hated exercise. I'd take him on 2-mile walks every day to untangle plot points, but more than once we'd wind up stranded because he'd lain down and refused to move. Whenever I tried to take him running with me, he pooped every other block just to get me to stoprunning. He was a real fucking primadonna; he was so beautiful that people would pull over off the street just to pet him or take pictures of him. He struggled during the pandemic because people didn't do that anymore; he once stole a banana out of someone's hand at a crosswalk. There was a school for kids with disabilities nearby and he always sat perfectly still to let them pet him. He was a sweet dog who was also an asshole. I really got me a dog who could do both.
And what he taught me was that what I had really wanted from him (again, unconditional devotion) was not what I'd gotten, but it turned out that I didn't need it after all. I learned I could love something without expecting love in return. I'd always kind of believed myself to be a selfish person; parenting was a decision I didn't know if I could make because I didn't know if I'd be able to accept the reality that a baby is a future human who deserves agency--meaning, I could very easily raise a kid who didn't like me very much, or a teenager who said I hate you, or an adult who might eventually take issue with me and the choices I'd made. There's a lot more to that decision than I could plausibly say here, but basically, one day I looked at my dog and felt love without strings and realized that I could do it. I could love someone with my whole heart without any expectation to receive it in return. I had thrown myself in front of my dog to prevent him being in range of a car, and he mostly wanted me to go away. And it didn't matter.
Because I was his mom. When he was sick, when he was hurt, he wanted me to hold him. And I was his mom before I even understood that I could be one. And I just wanted to say, I don't want to talk about this with anyone. At all. My grief is quiet and complicated.
But I am grateful for the time that I was his, and he was mine.
Comments