Gooseberry Park was mystical. That was how Gwendolyn described it once, when Kona took her for a visit to the new home Stumpy and her three children shared with Murray (a very nice sugar maple tree on the south side).
Mystical. A place of enchantment. Gwendolyn was a very spiritual hermit crab, and just as she could recognize a beautiful heart in a person (such as Professor Albert, who this day was helping his third cousin paint a porch), or a beautiful heart in a bat or a squirrel or a dog, she could also recognize it in a place.
There was a stillness to Gooseberry Park that is rare in this world. It seemed that every tree, every flower and bird and creature, had taken a deep breath and settled in. This feeling nearly brought tears to Gwendolyn’s eyes as Kona carried her through the winding paths and alongside the flowing water of Gooseberry Creek.
“How precious, this green place,” Gwendolyn whispered.
She and Kona had a lovely visit that day with Stumpy, Murray, Top, Bottom, and Sparrow. It is not often one sees a Labrador, a hermit crab, four squirrels, and a bat sharing egg rolls and powdered doughnuts. But feeding good friends was Murray’s second-favorite hobby. (His first favorite was feeding himself.)
It had been a very special afternoon for Gwendolyn and her friends. It seemed, that early-spring day, that nothing would ever go wrong in Gooseberry Park.
But slowly, and relentlessly, something was going wrong. And it involved rain. The friends did not yet know. Even Gwendolyn, who seemed to know many things before they happened, did not know.
A drought was coming.
The green trees, the purple irises, the soft mosses, the tall grasses: Every living thing in Gooseberry Park depended upon rain. Rain created life. And because the rain always came, year after year, the animals did not even think about it. They did not watch for it. They did not wait for it. It always came, just as the night always turned into day. Rain was dependable and constant.
Constancy. Being able to count on something or someone. This is what brings joy, and certainly Kona and Gwendolyn knew this joy. They had lived with dear Professor Albert in his comfortable home for many years.
Gwendolyn had arrived there first. During her long life, Gwendolyn had lived many lives in many places, and her children were scattered far and wide around the world (one even lived in a bunker in Antarctica with a famous scientist). Then one day Gwendolyn found herself in a pet shop. And Professor Albert found her and took her home.
After a time Professor Albert decided he needed a dog. A dog would get him out of the house. Professor Albert was retired and could spend a whole day sitting in his chair with a thick book about elephants or penguins or the planet Mars, and he wouldn’t have walked even to the mailbox. Gwendolyn was a perfect pet, but he could not exactly leash her up and take her for a walk in the park. And Gooseberry Park was where Professor Albert knew he should be going every day. It felt so good being there. But he did not want to go alone.
So Professor Albert went to get a chocolate Labrador puppy from a nice woman on Paradise Lane who had a whole yard full of chocolate puppies, big ones and little ones. And when one little puppy got into Professor Albert’s lap and would not leave, it was love at first sight.
That puppy was Kona. And while Professor Albert was very responsible about feeding Kona and teaching him good manners, it was Gwendolyn who really taught Kona about life. In the quiet, dark hours of the night Gwendolyn told Kona everything that mattered. And one thing that really mattered, Kona learned as he grew into a dog, was constancy.
This summer for the residents of Gooseberry Park, for Kona, for Gwendolyn, and for Professor Albert, rain would no longer be something constant in their lives.