Earlier this week I drove from New York to St. Paul, Minnesota with my youngest child, Beckett, aka Aspen, and Beckett’s dog, Gambel. On Wednesday I said goodbye to Gambel, in St. Paul, where Beckett lives, and flew back to New York. For the last 23 years, except for one break, I’ve been taking care of other people’s dogs. Suddenly, there is no dog waiting in my home to be walked.

There was Ruby, a white mongrel my wife adopted from a little cave in rural Ecuador, and brought home to New York with every intention of walking it several times a day. But then she got pregnant, three times, and dog walks fell to me. When we divorced, she asked me to take care of Ruby.

A few years later, Rynn rescued a large, gorgeous bluetick coonhound named Elvis. The dog barked so much that the city gave her tickets. She solved that problem by adopting a black and tan coonhound, and the two of them howled even louder together.

Six months later, Rynn died, and her dogs moved in with me full time along the our three children, Bolivia, Violet and Beckett. The dogs were completely untrained. Coonhounds are meant to ride in the back of trucks and chase raccoons up trees under the light of the moon, howling the whole time. They were not designed for New York City. I sent them to some Orthodox Christian monks upstate for training. They came back well behaved and able to run off leash in parks, which was a wonderful sight.

A few years later, Beckett adopted Gambel, hoping the dog would help him through some rough adolescent times. Gambel excelled. He is the most sensitive, easy dog I have ever been around. When Elvis and Alice died in old age, Gambel became the prince of the famiy.

And now he’s gone to St. Paul, and I feel alone for the first time since 2003. This is a new paradigm, and my heart is stuck in the old one.

Of course, being me, I told everyone that sending Gambel off to the north country would be easy, that I was looking forward to being alone and not having to take Gambel into consideration every time I went out, or took a trip.

However, coming home tonight I realize that Gambel was always waiting for me to come home, always watching to see if I was going to leave, and that grounded me. I am floating tonight, and I wish for my feet to be back on the earth.

Gambel and I hanging out during the early pandemic

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Everlands, by Stephen’s People

My hard shell has cracked