Xerx

a best friend

I NEVER thought I would miss someone, something, anything, like I miss Xerx. It’s incredible. He was just a dog. A dog! Didn’t even speak English. Yet when I see something that reminds me of him, my heart literally changes its beat. Ridiculous.

Yesterday I was going through some photos and I kept running into him. I can’t go through photos and not see Xerx - he was there when I took most of them and he would invariably work his way into them. I stopped when I came to this one:

I remembered the morning. We got up before dawn - one could not get up too early for Xerx. We headed out to see what the day would bring - life as adventure, even when only going a few blocks. It was autumn. Ducks flying south for the winter had made a stop on Wirth Lake. These were not city ducks. They were wild ducks just using a city lake for a break. I decided to see what kind of photo could be had.

To get the best composition - sky, light, reflection, ducks - we had to make a trail through the buckthorn and cattails. It’s a bit daunting for a smallish dog, but Xerx was a real trouper. He was very good at making sure he went on the same side of trees and shrubs so as to not get the leash tangled.

As we made our way through the underbrush, I wondered how this was going to work trying to get a wild duck photo with a dog along. It would seem Xerx would be anxious and the ducks scared, but to my surprise, just the opposite happened. Xerx was unusually mellow and the ducks not only did not scare, they swam closer to us. They seemed to know Xerx was not a threat. Just as I would rather photograph a duck than shoot it, Xerx would rather watch a duck than scare it. We thought a lot alike. He didn’t need to know English.

Xerx was the perfect photographer’s companion. He was content to wait as long as it took to get the photo.

Now, 4 months after he died, as I Iooked at this photo, remembering that morning, and the dog Xerx was, I felt a tear run down my cheek. How embarrassing.

That evening, as the sun was setting, and it was getting too dark to clean any more gutters, I walked down to Xerx’s grave. The flowers are now gone. The rock my sisters helped get down the hill - the only thing marking the now leaf-covered grave. I patted the leaves.

As I walked back up the hill I wondered about the man’s-best-friend thing. Was he? Could a dog really be a man’s best friend? As much as I hated to admit it, I had to admit it. But how? How can a dog be such? Why can a dog best a man?

I woke up last night thinking, wondering what it means to be a friend - not just A friend, but a BEST friend - what I learned from a dog.

I could write a book.