A Promise

Ever since I can remember I had this vision in the back of my mind: 

I was playing with a little black puppy.

 It was jumping up and down and I was so happy. 

But why did it make me sad whenever I thought about it? I didn’t understand. Did this really happen or was it a dream? 

I love dogs. I was always drawn to them. As a child, unlike my sister who was afraid of them, I would approach any dog I saw and want to pet it. In return, they seemed to sense I meant no harm for no dog ever bit me or even growled.

I’ve owned five dogs in my lifetime; the first was a white and tan-spotted Cocker Spaniel my parents brought home when I was about eight. Penny was the family dog, but everyone knew she was really Kathy’s dog. Penny had a litter of puppies two years later which I adored. Four years later my dad accidentally ran over her backing out of the driveway, which broke my heart. 

My parents never got another dog until they acquired my grandmother’s chihuahua  when she  could no longer care for it. We did have cats. My mother was a ‘cat’ person; I can never remember a time when my parents, and later my mother, did not own a cat.

I finally did ask my mother about the puppy when I was an adult,. Her answer was Yes, we had a puppy, but we couldn’t keep it. When I asked why, she said because it jumped up on people. That is the only answer she gave and she refused to talk about it further. I didn’t get the details I wanted. I was still left with my hazy vision.

Naturally, when my husband and I married, one of the first things we did was visit the local pound where we found Toby, our Peke-Cocker mix. Toby was a well-behaved little dog and adapted to apartment living. He enjoyed taking long walks with us on weekends. Toby moved with us to three houses before he was tragically hit by a car. By then we had two children, and we all cried as we buried him under a tree in our front yard.

Taffy, a tan terrier mix, and later Ginger, a brown cocker, were part of our family until they left us way too soon due to health problems. Our daughter acquired two german shepherd-wolf puppies when she was a teen, but took them with her when she left for college so we remained dog-less for several years.Then I found Kira. Actually, Kira found me. She was left wandering in the parking lot outside the building where I attended Jazzercise. She was shaking with fright, but put up no resistance when I put her in the car and brought her home. I had intended to find the owner until I realized she had been abused and she became ours. Kira lived with us 14 years before she became blind and had trouble walking and we helped her to the other side.

A few days ago I decided to go through a box of old war letters. This box, which contained three-years-worth of letters my parents had sent to each other during World War II, had been sitting in my closet since my mother died. The box held close to 1000 letters, by my estimation, and I had told myself I would ‘get to them’ when I had time. Of course the right time never came, so I this day I thought I’ll just begin reading a few at a time. Of course a few became many, and many hundreds. The first letters I read were much the same; my mother telling my dad about what she had been doing and bragging about what my sister and I had accomplished. I had just been born when my dad left for boot camp in November 1942, and my sister was born a year later in December of 1943. I would have been a one and two-year-old during that time, and my sister a baby. There were a lot of I love yous and I miss yous, but I was more interested in reading about me. How many people get a chance to hear what they were like as a toddler?

I laughed at the cute things I said and the antics my mother wrote about me. I also learned a lot about what life was like for families left to wait for their men. I did not learn much about the war from my father’s letters because soldiers were not allowed to tell what they were engaged in. 

It was while reading the letters that I began to find a subject that took me by surprise, one which concerned me directly. And very deeply, I soon realized.

November 9, 1943 Daddy The Presidio, San Francisco

Our little valentine is one year old today. Next year I think it is about time we got her her dog.

September 30, 1944 Mom

The other day when she started talking about “Daddy bring *Diane doggie,” I said,” When Daddy brings you your doggie what are you going to call it?”

She said,”Come here.” I guessed she thought I meant how would she call him, so I said,”Is his name going to be “Come here?” She said, “Uh-huh too.” I think I already told you that she never says “Yes,” it’s always “No” or “Uh-huh too” whenever you ask her a question. 

*I was called Diane, my middle name, the first five years of my life

October 18, 1944 Mom

On the way over to *Berdoo the other night Diane wouldn’t sit still on my lap, so my mother brought up her favorite subject -the dog Daddy is going to buy her- to see if she would sit still and listen-My mother said, “What are you going to name your doggie?” I added, “ Are you still going to name him ‘Come Here’? “No,” she answered. We named Mitzy, Fritzy, Fido, Blackie, Spot, Rover, every dog name we could think of and the answer was always ‘No’. When we asked her to just tell us, she began thinking it over. This was when we first started out and she didn’t say one word until we got to Colton when she said, “Me call him **Macaroni !”

• San Bernardino
• * My toddler mind, I’m sure, led me to the song “Yankee Doodle” and the part “stuck a       feather in his hat and called it Macaroni!”

October 24, 1944 Mom

This morning when Diane first woke up, she must have been dreaming about you because she stood up in her crib and pointed to your picture and said, “Dats my daddy write dere.”  Then when I put her in my bed for a few minutes, she said, “Daddy bring  Diane doggie bout too big,” and held her hands to show me the size of a puppy.

November 5, 1944 Mom

The picture I’m enclosing is one Diane picked out in a magazine. When I asked if that was a picture of the kind of doggie she wants, she said,”Too, me call him Macaroni too!” So she hasn’t forgotten the name she picked out a while ago. I told  her I would send the picture to Daddy and tell him this is the kind of doggie you and Barbie want.I think a little cocker spaniel like this would be nice, don’t you?

November 11, 1944 Daddy Holland

Tell Diane that her daddy enjoyed her nice letter and that some day he will be able to collect kisses in person and that he will bring her a little doggie when he gets home.

November 12, 1944 Daddy Holland

So Diane wants to call her little doggie she’s going to get “Macaroni.” We’ll have to take them to a kennel and let them pick it out or a better idea would be some day to take a drive and pick it out ourselves because they may pick out one that isn’t the best just because they’ve taken a fancy to it. We could surprise them in the morning. We can plan our little scheme when I get home because they will be plenty old enough for having one then. Diane will be about three and Babs as old as Diane is now so they will be just the right age for a little puppy to play with

January 12, 1945 Daddy Holland

I like the name Macaroni for the kids’ doggie name and call it ‘Mac’ for short. As you say, we will probably be more excited about getting a dog as the kids will. The kids can help me build the dog house. I’m sure I’ll get plenty of assistance from Diane, but don’t know if Barbie is going to be an outdoor girl or not.

Finally, I understood the reason for my sadness about my vision of the little black dog and it hit me hard. How could they build up my hopes and play with my emotions like that for three years? I seems I did get my puppy, but then they took it away. It must have been traumatic for me as a three-year-old; even now it brings tears to my eyes.

I can no longer confront my parents, gone these many years. No wonder they refused to talk about the puppy. They probably felt guilty, but I forgive them. My well-intentioned parents, probably caught up in the joy of parenthood and the anticipation of coming together as a family at the end of the war, promised their little daughter a puppy, then real life intervened.

Discovering what happened also helps me understand why, after all these years, I have kept a well-loved, stuffed, floppy-eared dog most likely given in expectation of their promise. I also now know how he got his name: Macaroni.