So many words, so little time...

This is what happens when I'm asked to write a unique biography in 150 words or less.

It’s June 1990. I am 12 and stoked for the summer, ready for the swimming pool, softball games, and tennis lessons. Enter one bench swing and a pack of friends. A particularly impressive game of jumping from the swing ensues. I spend the first several rounds standing on the back of the bench swing, holding on to the top bar tightly, and helping propel the swing for the jumps of my comrades. They eager squish into the swing in packs of threes and fours, the middle children jumping first, and shrieking with the delight of youth freed from elementary school. We weren’t too cool to care about jumping from the swing, that would come that fall, when junior high set in.

My turn to jump comes and I am mad air all the way. I’m flying! Kicking and screaming in the best way possible until gravity seals my fate and I land in hole on the ground with a very sore ankle, then I am just kicking and screaming.

The x-rays show four fractures.

What would Jessie Spano do? I hook my bike pack filled with books to my crutches, I exhaust my parents’ record collection, I smash tennis balls into the garage door when the crutches make way for the walking cast, and consider sitting still as an average 12 year old does. And in all the cast signing that summer, I never notice my foot growing and my toes of my right foot stretching out of the cast. All the toes except my big toe, which stops growing with that broken ankle and gives me an extreme case of Greek foot, dashing the hopes I never knew I had of becoming a foot model, but securing a philosophy that function is usually more important than form.

Fast forward 23 years and I nearly slice my left big toe off in a lawn mower incident six weeks before my second marathon. So I guess I am uniquely hard on my feet.

Hannah Boo Bear...

The Bitches are doing that thing where they take up ¾ of the bed. Yes, I had them totally trained off the bed earlier this year. Yes, I know I could do it again. They don’t always fall asleep here. I’m smashed off into the far right corner, wondering how long I might keep messing around on Facebook and writing before the laptop burns my thighs. I’m giggling as they are both on their left sides, facing the end of the bed, with their right front paws gently placed over their left front paws, like a commercial for bed thieving. Their deep chests rise and fall in the tandem of peaceful sleep. No attention is paid to the football game I can hear from another room. I admire the simplicity of their existence—eat, sleep, play, and do it all with a sense of unconditional love I can’t even begin to match.

I’m sitting here with Alli and Joey, the Brownheads, but I am thinking about some other brown girl dogs tonight. I like to sing “Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison as “Brownhead Girls” to my girls; it’s one of Alli’s favorites. Alli wasn’t my first Brownhead Girl. Alli’s ear is twitching as I type. My first Brownhead Girl was a Lab mix named Hannah. Hannah came to live with my ex and I when I bought my house. She was a skinny thing who turned up at the Humane Society and needed a home. She made a place in my heart pretty quickly. I’d grown up with dogs living outside and since the yard was fenced in, a doghouse was one of the first purchased after the house closing was completed. Did I mention I purchased the house in January?

Hannah was allowed to live in the basement the first night. I would have been a monster to make that poor thing sleep outside in a South Dakota winter. Sleeping in the crate in the laundry room downstairs was like the Hilton compared to my Blacky braving Minnesota winters outside when I was a kid.

She didn’t stay in the basement long. She was upstairs, baby-gated in the kitchen, and then the living room. Before long she was sleeping on the bed. Right or wrong, whatever different dog behavioral specialists may tell you, they are pack animals and they want to be near you.

Hannah was chocolate in color and loved to have her coat brushed. She started to fill out a bit, I’m sure due to the consistent feeding schedule and meat scraps I would save her from work. She never ran with me, but we walked a lot. She was a funny girl. She would tolerate wearing clothes, giving me a look of utter disgust when we tried to put a little dog hoodie on her. She loved car rides and the dog park.

She came into my life right at the beginning of my recovery and I didn’t really know upside from down, but she reminded me how important the love of a dog was in my life. During college, when visit my parents, Blacky was the one I told all my secrets to. He knew all the dark shit and saw the tears. He would sit with his head in my lap on the steps in the garage and just listen. Just listen. Hannah caught a lot of that, too. She knew all the insecurities but never exploited them.

And because she made my heart grow, there was talk of getting another dog that first year in the house. I wanted a bull terrier or a German shorthaired pointer. I’d seen a beautiful pair of GSPs at the dog park one day with Hannah and thought they were about the prettiest things I had ever laid eyes on. They were as elegant a dog as I’d seen.

Since the ex liked to hunt, he fancied two pheasant dogs and set his sights on the GSP. We drove up to a breeder near Aberdeen to find Alli. Of course, Hannah came with since she had to be part of the process. We knew we wanted a girl and when one of the four available females started messing with Hannah, she was out of the running. Alli picked me, Hannah sniffed Alli, and the rest was history. I do wish I had a picture of Hannah’s face when Alli pooped in the car on the ride home. Hannah jumped into the front seat with us, distancing herself from the mess of the little whining fur ball in the back.

Hannah was an amazing teacher for Alli. She was a natural Alpha, but not overly harsh. She did a great job of correcting Alli when she was a little too close to Hannah’s food bowl and helped make potty training a breeze.

Alli never respected the baby-gate. She hoisted herself over as a pup and sat proudly in front of the gate as if to say, “What else do you have for me?” leaving Hannah on the other side confused as to why her little charge wasn’t an interested in pleasing momma.

They spent a couple of years together, sleeping in a pile on the couch, playing in the yard, and making trips to the dog park. I was sorting a lot out back then and working several jobs, so sometimes I’m not sure what I’ve chosen to remember and what I’ve chosen to leave behind. I know that Alli always gravitated more to me and Hannah spent more time with my ex, running errands and taking car trips. I know people grow apart. I know decisions were made and lives changed. And I know one day she was just gone.
Alli was locked in the crate. Hannah was gone. The details aren’t the point here. The point is she was gone. They were moving to another state was what I discovered when I called his cell phone after work that night. She was gone. The stuff could be replaced. The stuff didn’t matter. The broken glass on the floor could be swept up. What hurt was that she was gone and I didn’t get the chance to tell her goodbye.

I stood at the beer cooler at Super America for a long time that night. I’m sure the clerk thought I was gonna try to rob the place or something, my tear-stained reflection wondering if there was enough beer in the world to make that hurt go away. I ended up buying a pack of cigarettes and calling my brother. I’ve never been so glad he answered the phone.

Alli wandered around the house, play-fighting with the air and checking every room and closet, looking for Her. I had to accept the fact that I would never see Her again so she just became Her. Her who died in an accident and I was never able to see Her again. Her who taught my Alli so much. Her who loved me, even though she knew who I really was.

I never knew what happened to Her. I didn’t know if she stayed in the other state or if she returned home when the ex did. Sometimes you think you’re through with the past, but the past isn’t through with you, though.

It’s funny. All I ever wanted from that situation was an apology. I wanted to know if Her was okay and I wanted an apology. I dug my heels in about that apology and it kept me sick for a long time.

Her died at the end of August. Her had cancer and was able to be euthanized, so she didn’t have to suffer. My ex called to let me know she wasn’t well and to make arrangements if I wanted to see her. So I did see Her. I got to hug my Hannah Boo Bear—her tail wagged really hard when I called her that. I got to hold her and give her a little booty scratch. I got to tell her I loved her the whole time and that Alli is great and has a sister we run with and a brother. I got to tell her that I was sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye. That was the apology I needed to hear.