We used to have some friends that lived just up the road from us a few years back. I wouldn’t say they were particularly close friends, but they were good friends. Nice people. We got along with them. They were like us. Similar to us. They weren’t overly churchy but they went to church. They were funny and nice; they did what they wanted and said what they wanted. Sometimes I think it made folks in the neighborhood nervous. Especially when they stopped going to church on a regular basis. He got a tattoo. That definitely got people’s attention. Some neighbors wouldn’t let their kids go over there and play. Seemed like they might be a bad influence.
Like I said, we weren’t real close, but there was this neighborhood thing, this church thing and this friendship thing that kept us linked. They called on me a couple of times to come to their house and help out with sick kids. I did what I could. But it wasn’t much. We did less and less as they decided to live differently than us. We seemed to have less in common. Maybe it scared us a bit – their free-wheeling ways, his tattoo and her outspokenness. We sorta drifted apart, but we always knew that we could count on each other, even though we didn’t talk much anymore. That’s the way of living a Christlike life. At least for me and I think for them as well.
The thing is, half the time, really more than that, I don’t feel Christ-like. I feel very un-Christ-like. I feel like I’m barely hanging on to the kind of life I want to live. Most of the time I feel like a mildly mediocre husband, parent, teacher and son. I feel like I’m barely getting by on the minimum. When people compliment me on my goodness, or skillfulness, or sensitivity, I’m embarrassed because I think they must have caught me on a good day. In that one good moment. I feel relieved that they didn’t see me the minute before this one because I was really screwing things up. Often my life feels like a thinly veiled veneer of right actions with a thick underbelly of selfishness and laziness.
For example, I have this other neighbor who was just recently in a car accident. She’s quite old and she’s been in a hospital or rest home or something for several months. Her house has laid empty for that long and I haven’t done one single thing to help her. Not one. I haven’t taken care of her yard, called, visited or attempted to do anything for her. What kind of neighbor does that? What kind of person? Someone who watches too many movies and reads too many books. I’ve thought about doing something many times. Dozens of times. I should go visit her. I should go mow her lawn. I should go clean her gutters. But I haven’t acted on any of those things. Not once. I hope no one was watching.
And so it makes me sad to hear folks in the neighborhood talking about our old friends from down the block. Talking like they were bad in some way. They didn’t talk real nice about them when they actually lived in the neighborhood. They became a bit hermit-like. Didn’t associate with us much. Any of us really. Things went bad for them. No one really knows what went wrong but they lost the house they were living in. And they left it in bad repair. Walks torn up, walls spray-painted, stuff damaged inside. A lot of damage and it makes them look bad. It makes folks talk. And boy do they talk now that they aren’t here to defend themselves. Especially since they don’t know the whole story, so they speculate, and they judge. They shake their heads and talk in that you-know-how-it-is voice with their eyebrows raised in indignant speculation. And even as they do that I want to scream. I want to have a very un-Christ-like moment and rant and yell and swear at them. I want to tell them that he dug a hole for my dog.
You never really know what it’s like to own an animal that really loves you till it happens to you. You can’t really describe it to anyone. Only those who have gone through it really understand it. It’s like having children. I’m not comparing children and pets, I’m only comparing having those kinds of experiences that can’t be communicated, only experienced. And my first dog was the best. He was calm and quiet and would chase a ball for hours. He was nothing short of amazing. He would stay with me wherever I went. He wouldn’t bark. He would allow kids to pull on his ears and tail and would never complain. He almost always minded. And once in a while he would bite.
He did it three times. He bit someone. One night he even bit my daughter on the face. It was just a nip, just a quick, reaction to being scared. But he bit her and she has a scar. And I started getting scared. I started making excuses for him. I started keeping him closer; watching him for signs of breaking. But there were none. Just that he seemed to be getting more and more scared all the time. And I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t sure what was causing him to lash out and so I couldn’t train him not to do something. And I was so concerned that the next time he got startled someone would really get hurt. I mean, we had been so lucky that my daughter only got a small cut. What would happen next time. And no one really seemed to understand.
And so, after weeks of agonizing thought and prayer and phone calls and research. We finally decided we needed to put him to sleep. It was the worst decision I’ve ever had to make this far in my life. It nearly killed me. I lost sleep over it. I struggled with it. And finally I talked to my wife and kids about it and we all knew it was the right thing, we just didn’t want to do it.
The time came too fast. The appointment seemed to catch us by surprise as if we had been ignoring that it was coming. The day was on us and it was time to do it. I wasn’t ready. Not only was I not ready mentally, I wasn’t physically ready. I was at work when I realized the veterinarian appointment was right after work and I wouldn’t have time to dig a hole the size I would need to properly bury my best friend. It was going to take hours and I wasn’t ready. I was panicked. I was going to come home, play with my dog and family for an hour, then take him to the vet for that last ride. I didn’t want to have him laying there dead, in the yard, while I dug. And so I started making calls.
I honestly don’t remember who I called or what their reasons were. But no one could help me. Except the one neighbor with the tattoo. He didn’t hesitate. He asked me where I wanted it and how big it needed to be. Then he said matter of factly that it would be done and waiting for me when I got home and that he was sorry I had to go through this. He was a dog owner too. He understood.
And so I got home, my best friend, my family and I went to the park. And we passed a perfectly dug grave on our way out of the yard, right were I wanted it to be. We let him pee wherever he wanted; we let him eat a couple of chocolate chip cookies; we let him chase the ball till he was exhausted. We laughed and joked and rubbed his ears till we couldn’t see through our tears anymore. Then I took him for a ride. I stood there at his side at the vet’s office and I held him as the vet slid that needle inside him and I watched his eyes close and tears rolled down my cheeks. I carried him to the car and then to his grave. I nearly dropped him I was shaking so bad from the tears. I felt like a failure. I had failed in making him feel safe. Somehow I had been the cause of his random biting. And I laid him down inside that hole, with his favorite blanket, a brand new ball and the ball thrower that he had so loved. We stood around that hole and told stories through our sobbing. We talked about our favorite times with him. And even the daughter with the bite scar couldn’t help me weep for her best friend that had slept with her every night and had only bitten her once. We did all that around a hole dug by a friend who wasn’t even that close to me.
And so when I hear someone talking bad about this family, this couple, and that man, I think – He dug a hole for my dog to be buried in! I don’t know what else they did or didn’t do. I do not know what their reasons were for doing what they did to their home. But I know, that one day, he had the love and kindness and spirit of service to put aside whatever he was doing to go to my house and dig a hole for my best friend to be buried in. A pure act of charity. That act of kindness is enough for me to overlook all the other crap. That’s what I choose to remember about him and his family. That’s what I think of when I look at that house as I drive by because that’s what I hope people will do with me. I hope they will overlook the countless mean and cruel and thoughtless things I do and choose to see the few shinning examples of goodness that I’ve managed to eke out between spells of selfishness and laziness.
I want to be better. I dream of the kind of person I want to become. I am not that person. I am an embarrassing shadow of who I want to be. But I’m trying. Some days I do well and other days I shake my head in embarrassment. My attempts are laughable sometimes. But I’m trying. I’m trying to do better. I worry that I’ve let those moments pass me by when I could have “dug a hole” for someone who really needed it. I worry that I won’t be as sensitive as my friend was on a day when I really needed a friend. Someone who understood what I was going through and could sympathize with me. Without judgment.
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