Evangeline

My dog Sarah after Paws moved away and she became a mature girl.

As a child, I remember taking out the book Where the Red Fern Grows (Wilson Rawls) from the library.  This story influenced my child self profoundly, as did The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. These were stories about the lifegiving relationships between animals and children.  The Redbone Coonhounds Old Dan and Little Ann were etched into my mind after I read Where the Red Fern Grows.  From these little hunting dogs, I came to understand how a little boy’s life was unalterably changed by his experience of being responsible for a pair of hounds who taught him nothing less than bravery, belonging, and unconditional love.  Just recalling these very human stories between children and animals makes tears fall from my eyes. Animals have the power to open a child’s heart; animals introduce unconditional love to children in profound and affecting ways. 

Evangeline was a child that I used to know when I was waitressing in a country restaurant in Portola Valley in my twenties.  It was a time in my life when I was lost; there was no ground beneath my feet. I had left a doctoral program (not forever, as it turns out) because I could not function in an emotionally effective way, and I needed to ground myself, badly.  A wise friend advised me to take a job that would help to center me but that would have horrified my parents (why wasn’t I engaged already, or well married and starting a family in accordance with my role as a daughter in a patriarchal family?).  All I can say now is that thank God that 26 year old woman wasn’t engaged during that time.  I might have floated rather than walked down the aisle. 

One morning, while working the counter of this country restaurant, I had the profound honor of meeting the five or so year old Evangeline.  She had sat down at the counter with her father and was quietly awaiting a very simple breakfast. 

Evangeline was a quiet, angelic-looking child, and her father was a man of few words as well.  There was something about this father-daughter time spent together, which became a weekend ritual, that touched me.  The time I spent serving and chatting with them was memorable.  The mornings were calm when they came into the restaurant on Saturdays, and I could sort of hover around in their “space” and occasionally chat with them. 

My heart would leap a bit when this cute pair walked into the restaurant, as it had become my great pleasure to serve them and to have little conversations with them.  I believe that they enjoyed our interactions as well.  At the time, I was painfully estranged from my own father, and so seeing this ritual unfold before me was healing.  Life doesn’t have to be so complicated, I thought to myself.  Some relationships can and should be quiet, simple, and sweet.  Seeing Evangeline serenely enjoying the presence of her dad was a balm to my soul.

And something else touched me about Evangeline; it was that she was a pale child, and there was something vulnerable about her. She brought forth my emerging maternal instincts, and I wondered.  Was Evangeline a completely healthy child?  Her skin seemed almost translucent to me.  Is she an angel, I wondered.  Her presence was ethereal, and  I loved this about her.  Knowing this pair in this context was a blessing in this phase of my life.

During this time, I had a dog named Pele. Pele was a Rhodesian Ridgeback Shepard mix, and Pele had a wild side.  I struggled with Pele because, if I let her off the leash, she would run, but really run.  Nevertheless I adored Pele.  She came to the beach with me, and we took long walks together in the hills.  She was my companion.  That said, there was always a risk that she would run away, and I have never been a natural dog trainer.  Pele was too independent for me in many ways.  I admired her independent spirit, but taking this dog to a training class was like handing over a sum of cash to a stranger.  Nothing was going to happen to benefit me or to change Pele.  I handed over a few bundles of cash to a dog trainer I can’t remember, and I resumed my life with Pele.

One day I was on the property that my parents owned at the time in the town of Woodside, a place where as a child I could let my childhood dog, Sarah, walk with me unleashed.  During that time, it was not uncommon to see dogs off leash, and Sarah was so independent that she would go each morning to visit her boyfriend, Paws, who lived on the neighboring property.  Sarah was a gorgeous, un-spayed Dalmatian, and Paws was a bigger, rougher and a more masculine Dalmatian than my delicate Sarah, who had black spots on both of her eyes, giving her an exotic look. Sarah was a knock out. 

Sarah and Paws fell in love, and every morning Sarah would trot down our driveway and up Paws’ driveway.  The two dogs would go on a walk, just the two of them (it was a mile loop), and then it was back to the shed where Paws lived for tug-of-war with a blanket. Afterwards, needing a little rest, Sarah trotted home to me.  Sarah had a full social life even without her “mother” knowing about it. I discovered her secret life one day when I followed her up the neighbor’s driveway.  There I met Paws’ “mother,” who as it turns out was the sister of Stephen Stills of the band Crosby Stills and Nash.  We would have bred the two dogs, only by the time Sarah came into heat Paws had moved. 

In any case, Sarah, in the months before she was spayed (she was a late bloomer), was orchestrating her own social life like a teenager.  My first experience as a doggy parent was thus fabulous. Because of social Sarah, as we called her, I met an almost-famous an exciting-to-know neighbor and was able to fantasize about little Dalmatian puppies coming into the world. 

It was a different time, and I had the good fortune to have the experience of “parenting” my dog in a rural environment, which didn’t work so well when it came to Pele.   

One day, I brought Pele to the property, and Pele ran down the driveway.  She was off.  I ran after her, but to no avail.  I put a “lost dog” sign up on the community board at the local grocery store.  I was terrified that Pele might get hit by a car or get so lost that I would never see her again.

My wild girl was gone.

Except for that she wasn’t.  A few days later, I received a phone call for another address in Woodside.  I drove up to the house, and who emerged but. . .

Evangeline. 

It was Evangeline who had found my dog, and it was Evangeline who had enjoyed a few days of bliss loving my dog.  It was Evangeline who, according to her parents, had no interest in returning my dog to me.   

It was Evangeline, and her parents, who brought my wild girl back to me.  And it touched my heart in a way that I cannot explain, because to my mind there is nothing random about our lives, nothing random about any person that we meet, even if it’s a glance or brush with a stranger in a grocery store. 

Our lives are orchestrated as a complex symphony is orchestrated.  Some meetings with strangers make possible experiences that we might need to have at a particular time in our lives.  These experiences might open up a previously closed portal to something that we need to learn and that at some point in our lives may contribute to an epiphany moment. An unexpected synchronistic event might likewise alchemize into a healing experience that we can only appreciate in retrospect.

It’s only in looking back on this time in my life that I now understand that my meeting with Evangeline was not a random encounter.  And I now know that I needed to meet Evangeline and her father as part of my own healing process; likewise, I like to imagine that Evangeline needed to rescue and learn to love Pele before her parents saw that dreaded sign at the grocery store indicating that Pele had an owner.

So here’s what happened.  A little girl who loved her father came by “accident” to love my dog, and what might have come of that?  Perhaps, because of my wild girl held many attractions for a young child, Evangeline begged for and got her own dog.  Or, perhaps it was simply that this interlude with Pele introduced her to the healing powers of animals. I don’t know how things played out with Evangeline, but I suspect it would be a mistake to explain this little story away as mere coincidence.  It’s not the “big” things that happen to us that turn our lives toward new possibilities, openings, and directions.

Evangeline needed Pele for the short time that she had her, I suspect, just as much as I needed to observe and enjoy the charming father daughter pair that Evangeline and her father made as they sat together at the counter where I served them.

Hot chocolate, coffee, toast, and a donut.