The party was almost a complete surprise. She knew something was up, but she didn't know what. But when her kids wandered off into the back room of the restaurant, I acted irritated and asked if she would go get them. Then she walked into the room where most of her best friends were waiting, and there began the surprise party.
We lunched, sang the birthday song, and then I gave her a wrapped gift, obviously a book. She opened it, and it was a copy of The Secret Life of Dogs, which was then on the best seller list. She commented, "Oh, this will be great for when I get my dog!" And then, over her left shoulder from behind, her eleven year old daughter gave her the six-week old pure white great pyrenees puppy that I had bought for her the day before in Mt. Ayr.
Mt. Ayr was quite a drive away, too. I had never been there before, but it I had the trip to Des Moines to compare it to. From Fairfield, where I live, it takes about two and a quarter to two and a half hours to drive to Des Moines. Since the parents are there I make that drive fairly often. There are a number of ways to do it, but when I want to go to West Des Moines I take the ninety-nine mile stretch straight west from Fairfield to Osceola, where you can get on Interstate 35 and drive 65 straight north for the forty miles to Des Moines. It's a bit faster to angle northwest to Des Moines at Albia on Highway 5, but you'd have to drive all the way through Des Moines from southeast to northwest. On Interstate 35, you just descend as if from the clouds by ramping off the freeway and zipping back east a little into yuppie heaven West Des Moines.
The drive to Mt. Ayr is similar to the Des Moines drive, for quite a while. You drive the 99 miles west to Osceola, but then you head south on Interstate 35. Just twenty miles south. But then there's the twenty-two miles west on Highway 2 to Mt. Ayr. And, of course, there's the mile beyond Mt. Ayr to the left turn on 169. Plus the 4 miles to the right turn toward Delphos, the drive through Delphos, sans oracle, and the two miles beyond that, until you come to the farm where the large white mother dog and a stray collie are resting. Let's just say that with talking to the farmer, stopping for gas, plus the quick pickup of lunch at the Subway on the way back through Osceola, the whole trip took six hours.
However long it was, the trip was somehow ceremonial. It was one of those unusual trips you take, the unnecessary trips, like a trip to a wedding, or to go buy a Christmas tree in the country, or a sunday drive to nowhere. You really don't have to go. It's not about work or about getting somewhere. It's about doing something that you want to do, something that has to do with making your life richer, not your pocketbook.
And so despite the fact that I had clearly lied to my girlfriend for the first time in saying that I was going to Burlington for the day to teach tennis, I still felt great. It was a white lie, I guess. And I was doing this crazy thing, taking six hours off on a Friday to drive three hundred miles to buy and bring home a dog. It was a long, loving gesture, and I felt good doing it.
Four weeks before she had noticed the ad for the great pyrenees puppies in the Des Moines Register. I had tried to act noncommittal while she expressed her desire to have one of those dogs, along with the financial impossibility of the purchase just then. Of course, my pressing agenda was to discover the perfect gift for her upcoming birthday, and this dog sounded like quite a candidate. But I had to cover up my interest in the ad, even to the point of watching her walk off with the paper, which I never saw again.
But, hey, no problem, with her birthday approaching rapidly, I called the pet store about that particular breed, and they recommended a couple of magazines to buy that cover topics of interest to dog owners. So I bought a few and started calling breeders of the great pyrenees variety of Purina Dog Chow enthusiasts.
But I quickly realized that I was in the middle of a fiscal emergency. The breeders of this huge, ancient breed of dog, which is said to be an ancestor of the St. Bernard, charge $500 to $700 for a pet dog, and $1000 or more for a show-quality dog. Nothing like the $150 that had been mentioned in the ad that my girlfriend had found. All of a sudden, that ad in the Des Moines seemed exceptionally valuable. Not that I would have hesitated to buy those dogs at the higher rate for this woman, if I had the money, but in this case it was going to be a cheaper strain or no dog at all.
So, my library research skills were tested as I searched intently through back issues of the Des Moines Register sunday editions, and eventually found the ad and the phone number. I hurried to a phone, called, and found out the bad news, that the advertised batch of pups was gone, and the good news, that they had another batch. The second batch was $200 each, and a bit young, but three had left the litter already, and the farmer felt it would be okay to take one if I wanted. I did want to, got the directions to Mt. Ayr, and drove over the next day.
I had passed Albia, and was into the long eventless drive between Albia and Chariton. Cruise control on, and hardly a car on the road. Suddenly, I felt a moment of ownership, that I owned what I saw, in some way. I was driving down the highway. I was alone on the highway. There were no farmhouses or towns visible, just country. And it seemed that I was the only person occupying this five or ten square mile area on the earth. I was, from my perspective, on the top of the world, and the only person, at that moment, to survey, perceive, appreciate, and in a sense, own that spot. Regardless of titles, deeds, fences and mortgages, it was somehow mine. And I liked that feeling, that because I saw the space, and because my awareness filled the area, for a moment at least, this small space in the larger expanse of the whole planet was my earth, my space, my home.
The trip was worth it, if only for that insight, that moment of reverie. And it was worth it when I petted the mother dog, and then saw the baby boy, and spent a few moments letting him nuzzle one last time with his mother, and put him in the car. And it was worth it when I came back out of the farmhouse after paying for the puppy, found him whining for his mother, took him out of the car for one last nurse at his mother's teat while she angled for another petting from me and gave me a "really, it's okay, he's old enough" look. And it was worth it when I looked down at the little gift in the passenger seat on the way home who, as a living thing, hardly seemed like something that you could "buy" and decided that my name for him was "Hope."
Hope for our love. Hope for our future together. Hope that we would have our own children in addition to the two blessings she had by her ex. Just hope for a big new future together. And though it didn't turn out that way, and sense dictates that it never will, the dog lives on. And though she eventually named the puppy D'Artagnan, for me that dog will always be our baby, the symbol of our love, and a symbol of hope. And someday it'll be a rather large symbol.
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