The Legacy of Peter Pan

The tears brimmed my eyes, threatening to cool off my burning cheeks. There was still a yellow-polar-bear sized hole in my heart that I thought the last 6 months had healed, but as I looked at this plain, brown paper bag of a dog, I was no longer sure.

I'm not ready for this. I'm not ready for this. I'm not ready for this.

The last few weeks, I had finally started to miss having a dog around the house. I had finally stopped seeing yellow dog hair in the vacuum, and thought I was ready to start using my lint roller again.

I knew what I wanted. A little scruffy dog with wiry hair and his own purse for transport. Completely opposite of my large, mellow, clumsy, shedding machine that had been my constant companion for the last eleven years. Peter Pan had a legacy, and no dog could ever live up to it. Which is why I needed a dog to burrow a different sized, a different color, a different personality hole in my heart.

And now I was panicking. And I'm not typically the panicking type. But this dog was big (like Peter Pan), he was clumsy (like Peter Pan), and he looked into my eyes like he knew what I was thinking (like Peter Pan).

"He's just here for a meet-and-greet. I don't have to settle on this one", I told myself.

Since the passing of Peter Pan, I knew the right dog would come and I would just know. I didn't know about this one.

What if I got him and he didn't like the lifestyle?

What if I don't train him well enough?

What if he's not the one and the one that is the one is out there with someone else, not being their one because they are my one?

But this big guy didn't care about my scattered thoughts and my emotional breakdown. He just kept sniffing all over my small apartment, somehow finding a tennis ball hidden away in a long lost hiding place. He laid it at my feet as a sacrifice, looking in my eyes like his was willing my tears to dry up and play.

"How do I know you're my dog?"

The words sounded silly as they echoed off the walls. But they were met with the cutest head tilt - like he almost understood, but not quite. So I said them again.

"How do I know you're my dog?"

He broke eye contact to look away, scanning the room. It was almost like he was looking for an answer to my question. But he was a dog. Dogs don't speak English. Especially not plain, brown, rescue dogs who had barely mastered the proper response to "sit".

He then started to sniff again, and look around some more. And I almost stopped him - he was getting dangerously close to Pete's spot. The spot on the couch that no human would want to sit as it was pretty much impractical to watch TV or even lounge comfortably. For 6 months that spot had featured a gaggle of pillows and throw blankets, filling the space but not the feelings.

Surely I wouldn't have to stomach seeing another dog in that spot. This dog's foster home didn't allow dogs on the furniture, so he wouldn't think of jumping up there, right?

And then he took his big block of a head and with one large swipte, cleaned all the pillows and blankets off the sacred space.

And he hopped up there.

As he started to spin and sniff, wiggling into the space he knew he belonged, I felt my panic subside. But my tears could not longer be contained. They poured down my cheeks, urged along by sobs that echoed off the same walls as my silly question just a few minutes before.

And the big brown eyes on the big brown dog, stared into my soul. As he filled the exact space where Peter Pan used to lay, and I felt him say "I'm your dog. It's ok, Peter told me you'd do that from time to time. Take your time and then we can celebrate."