April Specters

There is a faint historic stench of dog urine in my carpeting. Ordinarily, the stink is not apparent anymore after numerous cleanings and applications of pet odor remover; but something, perhaps the prevalence of showers this month, has raised the ghost of accidents past. 

Our dog Bert used to pee in my office all the time. He’s been dead for nearly a decade; and although putrid, the odor revives his sweet spirit. He must be popping by for a visit today to remind me of the inevitability of freedom from the bondage of self. He originally gave me that gift on the evening he died. I was holding him in my arms as his raspy breathing turned into three explosive cough-sneezes that catapulted his spirit out of his body, and I felt him pounce around the room like a puppy then breeze off across the rainbow bridge.

Memories of Bert are mingling with memories of my stepfather, whom I chose to call Dad. He was the original owner. He just got up one day out of the depression he’d made in his reclining chair and drove clear across the state of CT to purchase a puppy. Turned out that puppy drove him crazy. We bought him rather than to have Bert dumped in a shelter or sold to a stranger. As I recall that story now, the question lingers like the urine stench in my carpet – why did my Dad make us pay full price for that buff cockapoo?

But that’s how he was for me – as enigmatic as the weather in April. 

Born on April Fool’s Day, he told a mean joke – literally. He liked short ones with biting punch lines such as: “I paid you a compliment the other day. So and so said you weren’t fit to eat with the pigs and I said you were.” Ba Dum Bah! 

When he wasn’t the life of the party, he was typically reserved  – an aircraft engineer who was extremely precise. He’d take multiple measurements before hanging a picture while my mom, also an Aries, would just bang a nail into the wall. 

At first appearance, he was dashing and debonair – a world traveler who owned a racehorse named Beau’s Last Revenge, drove a powder blue Cutlass convertible, played Carmen on the piano, and ate steak tartare. He was also a confirmed bachelor until he met my mom. He married her and her four daughters on April 25th 1970. I was 12 and got drunk for the first time on champagne at their wedding.

For the next 36 years, he would quietly endure all sorts of family drama  ranging from petty thefts to runaway teenagers to car scrapes and other drunken escapades. His Catholic devotion, Winstons, and Beefeaters Gin saw him through. As well as the great blessing of my mom giving birth to his son.

In his final years, after a premature “golden handshake” from the aircraft corporation and his dreams of becoming a consultant fizzling out, he retired to the library/den he built to watch WWII documentaries all day every day. There were a few brief interludes from his depression, one in which he impulsively purchased a puppy, the other in which he switched the television station to watch women’s beach volley ball for a while. 

Otherwise, it seemed his life was like April flowers that blossom early and wither promptly, then retreat into tight-fisted bulbs that live underground for most of the year.  

Mmmm how grateful I am for the urine stench and the daffodils that return again and again to remind me of unconditional and enduring love.