Only recently has old Joe lost his eyesight completely. His
life story is untold, kept only in his little head. My sister, Myra, found him
walking down the middle of a country road—beaten up, broken, missing part of
one foot, with a broken jaw and most of his teeth gone. Even his tail was
broken, and he was blind in one eye. At the time, I had a hard, somewhat
cynical view of Joe. I thought he should be taken to a humane shelter, where
they could care for him and do what they do for old dogs in such terrible
shape. But Myra and my niece, Harper, opened the car door, scooped up the tiny,
shaggy mess, and brought him home. They called my brother, Bill, and asked him
if he could tend to Joe for the remainder of his life. Bill agreed, despite my
skeptical attitude.
At first, Joe wasn’t sure about the new arrangement. He was given a bath and food, taken to a vet, and given a fluffy, warm bed. But Joe had been through so much cruelty in his life that he thought he was dreaming and would wake up in a trash heap as usual. Day after day, he found soft food to eat. He was carried over rocky paths—painful for Joe with only three decent feet. But still, he was treated like he’d won some kind of lottery. A sweater, a fluffy bed, toys, treats, meals, and clean water.
Finally, the broken tail began to wag. Joe started to
realize he wasn’t dreaming. With his tongue dangling through his broken teeth,
hanging to one side, he opened his one good eye wide and smiled the happiest,
most grateful smile you could imagine. His response to every gift seemed to
ask, “For me?”
He played games he’d never played before. He could bark,
growl, and pretend to be a Rottweiler guarding a junkyard. Bill would go along
with Joe’s adventures, pretending to be the thief or the robber. In every game,
Bill let Joe win.
As I mentioned, Joe lost his sight in his good eye about
three days ago. At first, he looked around and blinked, hoping that maybe the
lights were just out. He bumped into obstacles, disoriented. But, like with his
broken tail, lost foot, broken jaw, and missing teeth, Joe accepted it. This
was just another thing to live with. I visited him last night. He barked when I
walked in. I spoke, and his tail nearly wagged. “I guess you heard,” he seemed
to say. “It’s no big deal. I can out-smell any bloodhound. Eyesight’s
overrated.”
I held him and pet him for a few minutes, then took him
outside. I let him brush against me as he walked in a small area. Every time he
touched me, his broken tail wagged. He didn’t seem bitter. “Bear with me,” he
seemed to say. “It takes me a little while to figure out where I am.” And then
he wagged his tail and smiled, his tongue hanging out through the big gap
between a few teeth in his lower jaw.
Joe is old—probably between 12 and 15 years old. Joe is
frail, and it takes so much just for him to get around and get comfortable. He
has to gum his soft food, but Joe is happy. He has the assurance that Bill will
be home, that he will have a good meal, a warm bed, a bath, and a big, fluffy
towel. He may not see, but he has visions. He has peace.
Joe’s life, once marked by neglect and cruelty, is now full
of kindness. He may not understand everything around him, but he knows love
when he feels it. Joe would say what Fanny Crosby once said:
“The merciful God has put His hands over my eyes, and shut
out from me the sight of many instances of cruelty, bitter unkindness, and
misfortune.”
Fanny went on to write “Blessed Assurance”—perhaps Joe’s
favorite song.
