Personal Reflection

I Choose You

A prose poem for Rosie

He stood. She sat. Neither moved. Each observed the other from a respectable distance. His eyes scanned her up and down. Hers never left his face. He took in her every detail. The curve of her shoulder. The sheen of her hair. The prominence of her chest. The line of her nose. The symmetry of her mouth. The warmth of her gaze. The stillness of her demeanor. She only needed to see his eyes. He cupped his chin in his hand. He stroked the bristles on the bony angle of his jaw. She waited. A voice cut through the din. “Dad, come and look at this one.” His hand dropped to his side. Reality stepped in. She watched as he melted away. She sat. Transient forms, noises, smells drifted by on the crest of time. She let them pass. Undeterred. Insignificant. She knew she was his. She sensed he was near. An imperceptible tensing of her neck. The merest flicker of her eyes. She knew his voice without knowing it. “She’s over here.” He had others with him now. Five pairs of eyes roamed all over her. Hers never left his face. “She’s the one. She’ll be perfect for us.” He looked into her deep brown eyes. “I choose you,” his eyes told her. She looked deep into his brown eyes. “I choose you, too.” It was only then that she stood. And they saw. The long, slender, black and white tail. Whipping the air with ‘I love yous’.

And so she did. She loved us all. Unconditionally. The only way a dog knows how to love.

© Carolyn Hastings 2021

We called her Rosie. She was 5 months old when she came to live with us. I remember picking her up from the animal shelter where she had been placed for adoption. It was August 1996. She came home with sutures in her belly from having recently been spayed, kennel cough, and lots and lots of puppy love.

We didn’t have much information about Rosie’s history. We were told that Rosie had been gifted to her original owner, a young woman, and she had named her puppy, Max, short for Maxine. Max, the story goes, grew to be somewhat bigger than the young woman had expected. She’d been under the impression that her canine companion was a Jack Russell terrier cross. Rosie might have been a cross breed, but Jack Russell she was not. We concurred with our vet’s hunch that Rosie was more whippet than anything else. Whippet with maybe a smidge of pointer.

My husband had grown up with dogs. I hadn’t. Nevertheless, I had agreed with my husband that it was time for our family to have a pet dog. Our elder son had just turned 11 and was at the beginning of his journey with depression. Rosie was chosen primarily for him. A therapy dog. Rosie had other plans. While she loved each of us in her own special way, it was my husband she adored. I knew that from the start. I knew that when I saw the two of them ‘giving each other the eye’ that first day at the animal shelter.

It was a Saturday afternoon. The place was overrun with people. Families, like ours, with young children, on the hunt for a fur baby. We had lots to choose from. Most of the pens were occupied. Some, like Rosie, shared their pen with another dog. With so many people around, the dogs were restless and excited. The barking reminded me of an orchestra tuning up, only worse. Much worse.

Rosie’s pen-buddy was one of the offenders. How she could sit there and totally ignore the deafening trombone next to her head was one of the things that so impressed my husband. He didn’t bother looking at any of the other dogs. We called him over to look at a lively little fluff ball that the kids had taken a fancy to, but he barely gave the pooch a peek, let alone a look. He’d already made up his mind — or maybe Rosie had made it up for him.

The photo below was taken a year or so before Rosie passed away in January 2012, the year that was to become our annus horribilis. She was nearly 16 years old. We never knew exactly when her birthday was, but we chose to celebrate it each year on March 28.

Thank you for reading my reflection about our beautiful dog, Rosie. My husband was right when he said, “She’ll be perfect for us.” Her photo is on our buffet in the family room and the framed collection of Rosie keepsakes hangs on the wall nearby. The roses are to commemorate her birthday and her beautiful soul. Thank, Rosie, for being the most perfect dog for us. ❤️ 🌹

Thank you to Dr. Preeti Singh for tagging me into the ‘I choose’ prompt which was initiated by Sahil Patel. Here is Preeti’s poem, I Choose A Life Of Happiness And Love —

And here is Sahil’s poem, I Choose —

If I may, I would like to call on these wonderfully talented writers to contribute to the prompt with their creative pearls — David Rudder | K. Barrett | Katie Michaelson | John O'Neill | Dana Sanford | Chloe Paulina Hawes 🙏 ✨

Thank you also to Dr Mehmet Yildiz and the editors at ILLUMINATION for hosting my words — and the prompt. 🙏 💕