The Big E – WKC Home At Last

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160 – February, 2025

By Elaine Lessig

Dogs have been in my life from the time Great Aunt Rose came to visit one spring Sunday, not long after my ninth birthday. Accompanied by my maternal grandparents, Cleo, as I named her, was handed to me in a brown cardboard box with nothing else in it. She came unannounced without any previous knowledge. My parents and I were shocked. Apparently, a colleague Aunt Rose worked with offered her the puppy. Aunt Rose somehow decided, for reasons unknown, she should come to live with me. After a serious, extended, adult conversation–to which I was excluded–my parents agreed she could stay.

Cleo and I were together for twelve years. During those years she was my constant companion. My parents and older sister were kind to her, but I was the one who loved her, cared for her. Over the years, she was my confidant. She buoyed me during the difficult times, my father’s death, a move to Florida to be near my grandparents, and then onto Pennsylvania several years later when my mother remarried. Cleo was mine. I shared all my hopes and fears with her. We missed each other when I went off to college. She seemed to sense my frequent visits before I ever opened the door. Cleo even waited for me to be with her when it was time to say goodbye.

Click here to read the complete article
160 – February, 2025

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