A Year Later–Hoo and Why

I’ll be honest: I’ve had a really hard time dropping my kid off at school these past few days. I was watching all those little legs running into the building this morning, and it was particularly acute. It’s pajama day, and all the kids were in a variety of candy colored, or merchandise branded flannels, with half of them wearing fuzzy slippers. They all looked brilliantly happy and cute.

The one year anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting is Saturday, and as the day approaches, I’ve just wanted to keep Thor with me. Part of it is because I can’t help thinking about how badly those parents and families must want to have their children (and adults) with them.

I’m not going to write a lot about it. I just wanted to acknowledge it–and I want to acknowledge the pain of any parent who loses a child.

When I got to the school to pick up my son on December 14, 2012, he was draped over a classmate’s dog, hugging it, loving it, talking into its jowly face (Boxer–the best dogs in the world) and I thought, “We cannot deny this child a dog any longer. If I lost that child, I would never forgive myself for having denied him a dog.” And, I really wouldn’t have. That would have eaten me alive.

So, we have Hoo. We’re coming up on our year anniversary of his joining our family. For better, or worse–and there’s been a lot of worse with this dog–he is ours. I feel like he filled a void, and I know I sleep a little better at night with him around.

When Thor drapes himself over Hoo, loves on him and coos, “Who is the best Hooberry Boy in the whole world? You are! You are the best Hooberry Boy in the whole world!” I feel really good about the choice to bring him home. (When Hoo is making a nuisance of himself, I feel really good about the idea of sending him to live on a farm.)