You Just Never Know
Mommy, can I have her?” Kimmy’s face beamed up at me as she hugged an ebony puppy with a white spot marking its chest and big, bearlike paws patting her hand playfully.
Flashbacks of my youth and the puppies I enjoyed cantered through my thoughts. I suddenly realized I was the same age as my daughter, just five years old, when I received my first puppy. That puppy had playfully introduced me to a life of caring.
“We’ll name her Dixie,” I said. Surely naming this puppy in tribute to my husband’s beloved South would work a miracle on him too. I needed one. We already had three cats, a bunny, and four horses.
The owner said the three puppies left were ten weeks old and free. And very close to losing their puppy appeal, I thought. The puppy’s mother was a Labrador and springer spaniel mix. The father was unknown. I sighed, wishing I hadn’t told my daughter we’d take her and thinking, My daughter’s puppy is a mutt.
Kimmy attempted to place Dixie, who had to be a hefty fifteen pounds, on her lap. Dixie made do as best she could, her tail creating miniclouds of dust slapping the ground, reciprocating my daughter’s act of friendship by licking the smudges of peanut butter and jelly from her cheek.
“Mommy, she likes me,” Kimmy said, giving Dixie a big hug.
Dixie soon wagged her way into my husband’s heart and mine, and the months happily sped along. Then I realized that Dixie was gaining an awful lot of weight. No one noticed when Dixie grew to maturity, but everyone noticed when Dixie grew rounder. How does one explain the facts of life to a dog? I frowned and asked, “Dixie, you should have known better. Now, just who is he?”
Dixie barked, placed two paws in front, and barked again. She appeared proud of herself, and I couldn’t help smiling. Dixie yelped again, grabbing her ball and bringing it to me for a game of fetch.
I rubbed her ears. “So you had fun romping with your boyfriend, but just where is he now?”
August came in with escalating temperatures. When her time of delivery drew near, Dixie chose the north side of the house, panting in the shade.
“Mommy, Dixie won’t play. Is she sick?”
“No, Kimmy, she’s going to have puppies. Be very careful. Don’t lean on her tummy.”
“Oh?” Kimmy said, suddenly all eyes as she put a curious hand on Dixie’s enlarged abdomen. “How many are in there?”
“Oh, probably a half dozen. And if their father is that short-haired pointer up the street, it could be as many as ten, maybe even fifteen.”
“Oh!” she gasped, clearly awed.
Together we chose a nice corner in our basement. I lined the floor with papers and then laid layers of towels down. Kimmy became so excited that she could hardly take time to eat. Even the daily routines of play and church became complicated. Then one evening Dixie did not come romping back to our calls.
“Dixie! Here, Dixie! Did you check the stables, Edward?”
My husband’s search yielded nothing.
That night the sound of thunder rumbled outside, and lightning lit the sky. A torrential downpour covered the windowpanes, matching the tears streaming down my cheeks. As everyone slept, I sat curled in my chair, waiting out the night with my Bible on my knees as I thought about the evening’s events. What had happened to Dixie? I was worried. But I knew that God cares what happens to even the least of his creation.
———
“Dixie!”
I rushed to the kitchen the next morning as Kimmy opened the door to a much thinner dog. Dixie hurried toward her bowls of water and food. She lapped up the water in huge gulps.
“Close the door, Kimmy.” I poured more lukewarm water into Dixie’s empty bowl. “Now listen to Mommy: we’re going to have to leash Dixie before we let her out; that way we won’t lose her when she goes to her puppies. So honey, don’t open the door until I tell you to, okay?”
“Okay, Mommy.”
I hurried toward the laundry room and reached for the box full of dog and cat collars and leashes. Then I paused before leaving the room, grabbing one of Kimmy’s worn blankets out of the laundry pile. This will do for the puppies, I thought. Then I heard the back door open. “Kimmy!”
I made it just in time to see Dixie bolt out the door with something yellow in her mouth.
“Kimmy, what did Mommy say—why did you let Dixie out?”
“But Mommy,” Kimmy said tearfully, “Dixie was whining. She—had to go outside to her bathroom . . .”
Realizing I, too, was very close to tears, I hugged Kimmy. “Okay now, don’t cry. We’ll find her.”
“But Mommy, Dixie’s got my Winnie-the-Pooh bear in her mouth—she wouldn’t let me have it,” she whimpered. “I want my Winnie-the-Pooh.”
“Dixie won’t hurt it. Now let’s get our raincoats and boots on.”
With leash, dog biscuits, and Kimmy’s old blanket, I was ready to spend the day in the woods finding our delinquent dog’s offspring. As we rounded the corner of the house, Dixie came bounding up to us, Kimmy’s Winnie-the-Pooh clasped between her jaws.
“Good Dixie! Good girl! Come here, let’s just put this on . . .” But Dixie would not let me get close enough to her to put her leash on, nor would she drop Winnie-the-Pooh. With every step we took, she kept the same distance between us.
Deep into the belly of the woods we went, descending into the marshlands. The crack of twigs echoed in the hushed stillness, and the roots of decayed trees made a challenging obstacle course for Kimmy. Usually this area was swampy, but the dry summer had left some areas murky and others parched even after last night’s rain. I wrapped the blanket around my neck and reached down. “Here, let Mommy carry you.”
“No, I want to walk.”
I looked at my stubborn offspring then back to her dog. Exhausted, I patiently extended my hand with the biscuit again. Dixie backed away again.
“Mommy! I’m stuck!”
I grabbed the tops of Kimmy’s boots, which were embedded in a pool of oozy mud, and yanked them and my obstinate daughter into my arms. Dixie’s head popped around an uprooted tree no more than an arm’s length away. She whined.
People don’t realize you have to stroke animals, not pet them. They don’t like to be petted. You have to stroke them the way a mother’s tongue licks them.[5]
—Temple Grandin
“Mommy! Look!”
There in the cavity the roots had made were Dixie’s puppies and Kimmy’s Winnie-the-Pooh. I looked up and saw the overhanging branches of the nearby oak tree. They had made a protective cover for Dixie from last night’s rain. Dixie’s puppies wiggled contently in their dry bed. She had protected her offspring and guided us to their whereabouts. It was as if she’d thought it through, just how she would present her little bundles of joy.
I looked at these twelve wiggly black-and-white puppies. I remembered the Bible verse I had read last night: “Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows” (Matt. 10:29–31 NKJV). “Someday I’ll be a good mommy like Dixie,” said Kimmy, “only I’m going to have a husband to help me.” Kimmy shook her small head. “This is too much for just a mommy to take care of—”
The puppies whimpered in the background and Dixie licked Kimmy’s cheek. I smiled, thinking, Dixie has given my daughter her first life lesson in caring. . . .
Only years later would I realize that Dixie’s life lesson was meant for me too. You just never know. I never dreamed I would be the president of an interchurch women’s group in our neighborhood, or that an endorsement to support the crisis pregnancy center would arise. But God knew.
My daughter outdid me. Married and with two little boys of her own, Kimberly is a counselor for the Oxford Crisis Pregnancy Center.
It’s been almost thirty years now, and Dixie and her Winnie-the-Pooh puppies are still fondly remembered. You just never know how God will intertwine his blessings into the fabric of our lives.
