CHAPTER 11

Rapt in Paws

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.

ALBERT EINSTEIN

NO ROAD GOES CONSTANTLY UPWARD, INCLUDING THE ONE TUESDAY and I are on. We hit peaks and valleys and some potholes, too. Some days are better than others, even though Tuesday never loses his good cheer.

This day started out as a downer and ended with a nice surprise. My head was killing me. If you’ve ever had a migraine, you know the kind of pain I am talking about. My temples were pulsing. My eyes were watering. My neck was stiff. My skull was a supernova about to explode.

People with traumatic brain injuries get more than their share of migraine headaches. I know I do. And this time I’d already exhausted my first line of defense—turning out the lights in my apartment, laying a cold washcloth against my forehead, lying silently on the couch, and, for good measure, moaning out loud. When I gingerly opened my eyes around 7 P.M., I could see in the semi-darkness that Tuesday was conducting his own assessment of me. He studied my face. He observed my body language, listened to my breathing, and then started gently nudging me.

“Let’s get out of here,” he was saying. “You need some fresh air at least.”

Talk about a role reversal! Now, my dog would be walking me!

I didn’t want to leave the apartment. It was barely 10 degrees outside, the coldest day of the year so far in New York City. The wind was snapping across Morningside Heights. The sidewalks were still slushy with leftover snow. But twenty-four hours into this headache, even I could see Tuesday had a point. Maybe I could find an over-the-counter headache remedy at the drugstore that would actually be effective. At the very least, some soup would probably do me some good. After hitting the Duane Reade pharmacy on 111^th Street, I told Tuesday we could go across Broadway to our favorite little café, Le Monde. He loves their medium-rare beef burgers, at least as much as I like their steamy, soothing chicken soup.

As he led me up the block, I had to admit the biting wind actually felt good against my sweaty face. Inside the drugstore, I grabbed a bottle of juice and a box of Kleenex, and then I went to the colds-and-headaches aisle, where the many options packed four full shelves. Regular Strength, Extra-Strength, Advil, Tylenol, Excedrin, daytime, nighttime, 8-hour, 12-hour, 24-hour, blue pack, red pack, white pack, with herbs, without herbs: How could anyone possibly choose? There were enough choices to give me a headache all by themselves. The only thing the store didn’t have was a product that guaranteed: “Take this one. Your migraine will go away.”

As I stared at the packed shelves, feeling totally overwhelmed, Tuesday gave me one of his thigh hugs, nuzzling his snout against the upper part of my leg and sharing the warmth of his fur. “It’s okay, Luis. You’ll be better soon. These headaches don’t last forever. It just seems that way.”

That’s when I noticed a woman staring at me.

She was dark-haired and middle-aged and wearing a heavy wool coat. I looked away, but when I looked over again she was still staring at me. I felt bad enough from the throbbing in my head and the rapidly increasing nausea. Now we had a stalker? I shot her a scowl, and that made her turn away.

Hypervigilance is frequently a symptom of PTSD, especially for people who’ve been in law enforcement or the military, fields that already encourage situational awareness. But I wasn’t imagining this woman’s stares. I grabbed a box of something that seemed like it might be helpful and moved to the front of the store. As we waited in the checkout line, she was eyeballing us again.

There is no point in having a confrontation, I told myself. I’ll be out of the store in a minute. I opened the pill bottle, shook out two and washed them down with a swig of juice as Tuesday and I headed out to the sidewalk. The wind, now at my back, didn’t feel so biting anymore. It was so damn cold. Clearly, I wasn’t dressed warmly enough. But I knew we wouldn’t be outside for long. Le Monde was just across Broadway. Once inside, we’d both warm up. While Tuesday wolfed down his burger, I’d be diving into that bowl of brothy chicken soup.

As we waited at the light, straight-up freezing, I noticed two people—a man and a woman—walking a large gold-colored dog. They were coming toward us up Broadway from the south, but not quickly, stepping carefully across the ice patches and the slush. Tuesday noticed, too. He’s always aware of other dogs. That could be a playmate, he was thinking. Maybe, I can meet someone new, he wagged. Even from that distance, I was pretty certain that the dog was a golden retriever. You don’t see that many golden retrievers in New York City. They are big for small spaces. This is a city of Westies and Malteses and chihuahuas, dogs that don’t take up half a studio apartment and don’t seem to miss having their own backyards.

At first that’s all I noticed, a couple and a dog that could have been Tuesday’s distant kin. But as I kept watching them, something seemed off. The retriever was trotting funny, and, from that distance, I couldn’t quite say why. Hop-bouncing up the sidewalk. That’s how I would describe the gait.

Just then, the woman from the drugstore walked up.

Her, I mumbled to myself.

“Excuse me,” she said tentatively. “I am very sorry for staring at you in the store. But by chance is that Tuesday?”

There was something about her tone—her politeness, her timidity. And the way she said “Tuesday,” it was like she was talking about a beloved celebrity, which of course he is to me—but I still like hearing others say so. I’m unabashedly proud of Tuesday. All of a sudden, my eyebrows unfurled, and I was looking at this woman in a whole different light. In ten seconds flat, I went from oh, great, here’s the psycho-stalker lady to oh, hello!

I believe I can explain the sudden change. I like to think of Tuesday as a reflection of the best in me. Now, instead of a stalker, here was someone who was inquiring politely about the best of me.

“Yes, this is Tuesday,” I said.

“Oh my God,” she said. “I knew it.”

“It’s Tuesday,” I nodded, assuring her.

She wasn’t a stalker, but she did know a lot about us. “I have been hoping I would see you and Tuesday,” she said. “I knew from your book that we were neighbors. When I read your book, all I could think of was my daughter. She is eighteen. She has severe anxiety—about everything. She doesn’t like to meet people. She doesn’t even like to go outside. We have been thinking about getting a service dog for her.”

When people approach Tuesday and me, they often feel comfortable opening up about the most intimate details of their lives. They’ll share whatever they are feeling or going though. I do think dogs encourage honesty in humans. Dogs are so naturally open and accepting, they make us drop our human defenses and our usual fears.

Here was a woman I had never met, a woman I moments ago believed could be a crazy person, now conveying the deepest pain in her life. The emotion was flowing out of her. Her eyes filled with tears, and for a moment she lost her composure. She was obviously deeply concerned for her daughter. What she might not have realized was that it was because I had Tuesday in my life that I was able to listen to her story. I was more comfortable doing that than I ever would have thought possible. None of it scared me anymore. This woman had just met her hero—Tuesday—and she was reacting without artifice or restraint.

She spoke and I listened, and the light changed to green and then red again. As the three of us stood there, completely unaware of the elements, I did notice the couple with the golden retriever were finally approaching, just a few storefronts away. As the distance narrowed, I could see that something more than the slush was causing the dog to hobble. This beautiful golden retriever had only one front leg.

The minute I realized that, my mind raced back to Angel, a wonderful woman who lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and to Benjamin, my God-dog. Like this dog on the frigid Manhattan sidewalk, Benjamin is a golden retriever missing his right front leg.

Angel is a total sweetie-pie. She is what we call in the dog world a “foster failure.” She was working with an animal rescue organization, helping to place unwanted and abandoned dogs in loving “fur-ever homes.” When Angel met Benjamin, an eight-week-old golden retriever puppy, the tenth in a joyful and rambunctious litter of ten—she couldn’t bear to pass him on. Benjamin stood out from his furry brothers and sisters. He was smaller than the other puppies, and he had a congenitally deformed right front leg. Angel already had seven other dogs at home, all different breeds. But little Benjamin totally stole her heart. She had to make him hers. She consulted with several veterinarians, and they all agreed on this: Benjamin’s best hope for the future was a full amputation of his badly deformed leg, which is how he became a tri-ped.

Like the woman in the drugstore and so many others, Angel had been moved by Tuesday’s story and, several years after welcoming this special dog into her home, she had reached out to me.

“Benjamin is 4 years old this year,” she said in an email. “His body is strong and his spirit is incredible, but the wear and tear has begun to take a toll on him. His frustrations get the better of him on occasion. But he is still in charge of this pack of dogs, and he is still the one who knows when my head hurts, when I am happiest, or saddest. He is so in tune to my emotional state that I have to check myself often because if I’m unstable, he will challenge our environment until he feels the harmony come back into our world.”

Echoes of Tuesday! Benjamin may not be an official service dog, I thought—but he was certainly performing like one. I love that story.

Angel and I traded a few emails. A few months later, she and Benjamin drove four hours to Chicago to a fund-raiser Tuesday and I were doing for Elana Morgan’s War Dogs, a wonderful not-for-profit group that places service dogs with veterans suffering from PTSD. It didn’t take long—both Tuesday and I also fell in love with Benjamin that day. Angel told me more about his frustrations and how the missing leg seemed to affect his mood and his basic ability to get around. When a dog is off balance, especially because of a missing front leg, the consequences can be dire. It isn’t only a balance issue. The spine is pressured. The organs are strained. Most of a dog’s locomotion comes from the front.

Hating to hear how Benjamin had been suffering, I told her I would do what I could to help. From that day forward, I considered him my God-dog.

My first thought was a prosthetic leg. But after doing some online research, I realized sadly that Benjamin’s condition—he had no stump, or “residual leg”—didn’t make him a promising candidate for that. His entire limb was gone. There wasn’t even a socket to support a prosthetic. I kept looking online and, determined to help Benjamin, I also spoke with several experts. Finally, I came across a group in Colorado called OrthoPets that creates custom braces to strengthen the “good leg” of tri-ped dogs. I loved their slogan: “Endless Paw-sibilities.” One of these custom braces, I learned, can support a dog’s gait and the rest of his body. It can also reduce the strain on the spine and organs. Working with the OrthoPets people, we had Benjamin’s vet carefully measure the precise dimensions of his leg for the brace, which was made just for him, sliding over the good leg like a tight-fitting sleeve. Angel was thrilled at the huge difference it made. So was Benjamin, maybe even more so, as he started bounding around Grand Rapids better than before.

His gait was smoother. His spine was less stressed. His overall health improved. His vet couldn’t get over how well Benjamin was doing. He is a wonderful creature. I was thrilled to be his God-human.

I smiled and thought of Benjamin’s journey as I saw that three-legged golden retriever hopping awkwardly toward us on Broadway. Tuesday was wagging away. At first, he might have thought that it was his old friend Benjamin coming up the sidewalk.

“Excuse me,” I interrupted the drugstore lady, “I’ve got to meet these people.”

I introduced myself to the couple with the dog.

“I noticed your beautiful dog is a tri-ped,” I said. “It so happens that my God-dog Benjamin is also a tri-ped and a golden retriever.”

That might have raised some suspicion. A New York City stranger who just happened to have a tri-ped golden retriever God-dog? Really? But these lovely people smiled, and I told them more.

I told them about Benjamin’s mobility issues and what a difference the custom brace made. The woman expressed great interest, completely understanding what I was saying. “That’s amazing,” she said. She said that she too was growing concerned about how her dog was walking. She said she was eager to do anything that would be helpful. But the brace, she told me, wasn’t something they were familiar with.

I wasn’t surprised. Until I’d done the research I, too, had no idea that any of this was possible. “A lot of people don’t know this exists,” I told her. “But it’s becoming more common.”

I thought I saw a hopeful spark in her eyes. “That’s very intriguing,” she said looking down at her dog.

We exchanged cards, and I promised to send her some detailed information.

“I’d really appreciate that,” she said, tucking the card into her warm coat pocket.

It hadn’t gotten any warmer on the sidewalk. Now, six of us—two dogs and four humans—were standing on the wind-whipped corner in below-freezing temperatures talking about amputee dogs, the drugstore lady’s daughter, all this heavy stuff, right in the middle of my migraine. And suddenly I realized that I wasn’t thinking about the pain in my forehead. I was feeling immensely grateful that Tuesday had dragged me out of my apartment for a walk.

We all talked a while longer until the couple with the golden retriever said they had to get going. They said their goodbyes to Tuesday and then reached out to shake my hand. The man was wearing gloves. The woman was wearing mittens.

As the woman shook my hand, I could feel that she was missing several if not all of her fingers. There was no doubt about it. The front part of her mitten was empty. Her right hand was shaped more like a stump.

I had no idea how that might have happened or what could have caused it, any more than I knew whether her own condition played any role in her having adopted a disabled dog. I didn’t ask, and she didn’t offer. We just said our warm goodbyes and wished each other well.

But I had to admit, the handshake affected me, knowing that this particular woman was caring for this particular dog. It seemed like something out of the Bible. I couldn’t help it. It made me like her more.

To shake this woman’s mitten and to feel that, I thought to myself, Oh, man, that’s the stuff that saints are made out of.

Like I said, dogs have an incredible way of helping people connect.

The drugstore lady lingered just another minute.

“Would you and Tuesday please consider meeting my daughter?” she asked. “A personal visit from both of you would be a tremendous help to her. I’m sure it would be.”

I told the mother, of course, we would visit her daughter. We would be happy to. “I don’t have a daughter,” I told her, “but I have other people in my family, and I have Tuesday. I know how tough this must be. I can only imagine what it would be to have someone you love suffering like that.”

I gave her my card. “Please email me,” I said. “We’ll set something up.”

There was one thing I was thinking that I did not say: My own family certainly knows something about that….

After I told the drugstore woman goodbye for now, Tuesday and I finally crossed at the light. By that point, both of us were exhausted and almost numb from the cold. My migraine, which I’d momentarily forgotten, was pounding back again, and my nose was running now. On top of all that, the pain in my leg seemed to have been sharpened by the cold. I was more than ready for the warmth of Le Monde and my steaming bowl of soup, though perhaps not as ready as Tuesday was for his burger. So much had happened in the past twenty minutes.

After we sat and ordered, I called Angel in Michigan. I had to tell someone about this chance encounter. Who better than Angel?

As I sat there in the café with Tuesday at my feet, nuzzling against my legs, both of us warming each other and waiting for our food, I started telling Angel everything. About the woman in the drugstore with the anxious daughter. About the couple on the street with the tri-ped retriever. About the woman’s hand. About my rush of Benjamin memories. As I spoke softly, the beauty and emotion of it all came gushing forward. I’m not a big crier. And maybe I can partly blame what happened next on the migraine and frigid temperature. But all that feeling just overwhelmed me.

Amid the buzz of the busy restaurant, I erupted in tears. I reached down, grabbed my napkin, and cried at the beauty of it all.

And it was all because of Tuesday. That drugstore lady saw us because of Tuesday. I noticed that golden retriever tri-ped because of Tuesday. Were it not for Tuesday, I would never have gotten the email from Angel or become Benjamin’s God-human.

I am so lucky, I thought. So blessed. The tears flowed, and I let them.