Ocean was a black, 15-pound mongrel with tarter-caked teeth,
sour breath and cataract-glazed eyes that appeared green in every single photo
we ever took. We were crazy about him.
In 1993, en route to a vacation in Aruba, I promised my
7-year-old I’d get him a present if he could last the week without provoking a
fight with his older brother. “I want another dog,” he replied. We laughed. Our family
already had two so a third dog was out of
the question. Besides, it seemed like a safe bet.
An hour after we arrived I spotted the little black dog,
strutting purposefully along the beach, his head held high as if he were on a
mission. He was.
He stopped at the Hyatt beach bar, where the bartender
served him a bowl of water he lapped up gratefully. He then proceeded up and
down the beach, begging sunbathers for food. Few could resist sharing their
potato chips with him. Potato chips remained his favorite food until the very
end.
I’ve fallen in love on-the-spot twice. On the day I met my
wife. And for the second time on that palm-studded beach where, in the
distance, calypso music was playing.
Reading my mind, my wife had five words to say. “Don’t even
think about it.”
I observed him for most of the week. His
poor-little-beggar-dog routine never varied. At night we would find him curled
up under a bush where he was safest from iguanas, which, in Aruba, are the size
of small alligators.
I asked lifeguards and vendors who worked on the beach if he
belonged to anyone. All agreed he didn’t and that he was a nuisance.
One morning I went to the beach alone and plopped down in a
chaise. The little black dog came up to me. I talked to him. He seemed to
understand. “Little black dog, I’m going
to get up and walk back to the hotel. If you follow me, I’ll take it as a sign
you will consider becoming a part of my family … and you will become a prince
among dogs.”
I walked a hundred yards without looking back, hoping he was
following. He was. I stopped. He stopped. I walked a hundred more. So did he.
Our eyes met. His seemed to say, “I trust
you, mon.”
I threw a towel over him and smuggled him through the lobby,
up to our room.
His ribs protruded. He was covered with fleas. One eye was
swollen shut with infection. I took him to a vet I found in the phone book and
instructed the vet to give the dog the shots he needed to get through U.S.
Customs. The vet wrote “Lucky” under “name” on the dog’s inoculation record, but
the boys named him “Ocean.”
Ocean flew with us to America and was driven to his new home
in Connecticut, a white colonial surrounded by green grass on which he promptly
relieved himself, marking it “mine.”
He was housebroken instantly. And, while I’m the one who
wanted him, he immediately became my wife’s shadow, following her everywhere –
even to the bathroom.
Our other dogs would invite him to join them in play. He
would stare back blankly. Perhaps he never understood the language spoiled little
American dogs speak. In any case, play was a foreign concept to someone who had
spent his entire life foraging for food and outrunning iguanas.
Twice a day, when his bowl was filled with Mighty Dog, he
would break into a joyful dance and bark, as if declaring, “Hey mon, what a great country! I don’t have to beg no more.”
And, despite the fact he was accustomed to the tropics, he
loved to stay inside, where it was air-conditioned. We would let him out to do
his business and within a few seconds he was back at the door, as if he were
afraid the house would vanish while he was away from it, along with his
new-found good fortune.
Already gray-muzzled when we found him, Ocean grew grayer
through the late ‘90s. About a year ago, he found the stairs impossible to
negotiate, so we started carrying him up and down.
One day this summer, I detected a lump in his chest. We
rushed him to the vet who said it appeared to be an allergic reaction. But after
several months of expensive treatments, as he became thinner and less steady on
his feet, it was clear Ocean’s days were numbered.
The end came suddenly. We were planning to leave the next
day for a weekend in Boston. That morning, the vet had suggested that Ocean
should spend the weekend in the hospital for observation, rather than check
into the kennel with our other dogs. We agreed to bring him back in the
morning.
Ocean hated to be boarded, to be separated from us. He knew
he was mortally ill. So he decided he would rather die in his beloved home,
surrounded by his family.
My wife says he danced and barked for his dinner, as usual,
at 5, before she left to meet some friends.
When I arrived home at 7, he was curled up on his blanket,
unable to raise his head or stand. He looked up at me as if to say, “Sorry mon, there’s nothing you can do about
it.”
I petted him and, as his breathing became more labored,
spoke gently, telling him to go ahead, to let go. I thanked him for the lessons
he had taught us about trust, about gratitude, about not judging by outward
appearances, about giving and receiving love with no strings attached. But he
seemed to be waiting for something.
When he heard my wife’s car turn into the driveway, he
lifted his head. When she walked through the door, his ears perked up, and he
seemed to relax. A few moments later, he crawled under our poster bed where he
slept every night, fell on his side, breathed deeply three times, and was gone.
I like to think he’s back in Aruba, but that Aruba has
changed.
Palms still sway. In the distance, steel drums still pound
out calypso. He still has the freedom to work the beach, begging potato chips
from strangers.
But where the beach bar stood now stands a white
air-conditioned colonial, surrounded by a carpet of green grass.
In the house lives a family who loves him, defends him from
iguanas, keeps his bowl filled with fresh cool water and serves him Mighty Dog
twice a day.
He knows he can come home whenever he wants, and he always
does.
