MY BEST FRIEND - MY PAL

 I originally wrote this piece in January 2019. When I realized that Pal was the first thing to come to my mind as a "GodWink", I knew I had to share this on my blog.

I guess my best friend was a dog that adopted me. I get a little teary still thinking about this special dog. Now reflecting back, I see more and more how special my relationship with him was and how he filled a void in a critical time for me.  He was there for me EVERYDAY, and most of the time, I preferred to play with him over my friends.  God certainly knew what He was doing when He place Pal in my life. We had other family dogs: Lassie, which Paula and Bryan placed a rubber band around his neck, only to be found when Mother smelled a really foul odor. He lived but I don’t remember much about him. Then we had Butch, a pug. I was too young to establish a relationship. I guess when Butch died, Mother and Daddy swore off of having a family dog. Until Pal arrived.  He was a mut, and I tried to pretend that I didn’t like him because I knew how much Mother and Daddy didn’t want a dog. But I played in secret with him, and he grew so very fond of me. He followed me everywhere and would not leave.

One Sunday afternoon, Mother and Daddy were determined to get rid of him, so we loaded him up and took him far away, into east Vernon, and let him out of the car.  As we drove off, I looked out the back window and he was running as fast as he could to keep up with the car.  I started howling and bawling my eyes out. Daddy stopped the car, we gathered him up, and from that day forward he was my dog, my PAL! I was probably in the second grade and had never known such loyalty in my life. There was one time when an older teenage girl showed up at our front door and claimed that Pal was her dog. She called him Johnny, and she lived in an apartment complex just across the way.  I cried, but I had to let him go.  Just days later, Pal reappeared, and I suppose they just decided not to search him down again…and he was finally mine! He let me dress him up and place him in my buggy. We took many picnics in an open field together. It was a relationship like no other. During my growing up years, I played many hours outdoors and having Pal as a playmate was the best. He was free to roam outside, until Mother finally agreed to allow him indoors. He would even find me at school and I would call Mother to come pick him up. Once I learned to ride a bike, Pal would follow me everywhere, and if I received permission to ride my bike to the local 7-11 (which was down a busy road), I would leash Pal to my bike and away we would go.

When I began to drive to school, Pal always knew when it was time for me to come home from school. He would position himself in the front yard waiting my return, and when I would drive in, he would follow me around to greet me at the car door.  All my friends knew him well. When we left for college, one friend brought some college friends home. When they were driving around, they came across Pal at the intersection near our home. She rolled down the window and called his name, and they all said, “You DO know everyone and their dogs.” Nothing was the same unless Pal was there to join the fun, which made a couple of Christmas eves a little dicey.  It always seemed that if he ever ran away, he would disappear on Christmas eve, the most special day of the year. I would just be miserable. Family would drive around looking for him, night would fall, Mother would serve our Christmas Eve meal, and I would constantly check the front porch…and then poof, there he would be and I could be happy to open presents.

Pal lived a long life. I was lucky to have him during his prime years. For me that would be from the 2^nd grade until college.  When things fell apart in my home situation, he was there for me. After I left for college, Daddy backed over him one morning, and Mother said Daddy was as white as a ghost when he came in to tell her.  They took Pal to the vet; he lived but was always down in his hind part after that.  And of course, one Christmas, he wandered off..never to return. I knew that he wanted to spare me the pain of physically losing him.  But we never quit scouting the horizon for him, as there had been a sighting of him on the highway to the lake. I often wondered if he was trying to find me.  I loved him; everyone knew I loved him; he was part of me. From that day forward, I have never been without a dog.  Dog spelled backwards is GOD.  They are special critters, indeed.