[Sportsandrec] Dare to Move On

[Gaston Bedard]

Folks,

This is 'motivation' at its best.
It's a wonderful story, the puppy did the trick.
Gaston

Dare to Move On

>From Chicken Soup for the Soul: What I Learned from the Dog

By Vicki Kitchner 

A dog is the only thing that can mend a crack in your broken heart.

Judy Desmond

Many of us have thought about the horror of dying in a Nazi concentration
camp, but what about the challenge involved in 
resuming life beyond the experience? How did it feel to survive this horror
when family members, friends, and neighbors did 
not? Did the memory of torture, starvation, deprivation, and death ever fade
to the background of their lives?

Those questions ran through my mind after a new neighbor moved into the
house next door to me. I lived in a close-knit 
community of loving and caring people in a quiet neighborhood in Indiana.
Although no one knew much about Mr. C, we 
did know that he was an Auschwitz survivor.

I used to sit on my front stoop and watch as he pulled into his driveway
after 
work each evening. He would bolt for his front door with eyes trained on the
ground and shoulders curled forward as if to 
make himself less visible. Even as a child, I recognized the fear in his
body language. I wanted so much to reach 
out to him in kindness but had no idea how to do it.

Mr. C was temporarily forgotten after my parents presented me with a Golden 
Retriever puppy for my eighth birthday. I have never loved anything so
instantly and so completely in my life. Molly was smart 
and playful and very mischievous but her antics filled me with delight.

As the free days of summer were drawing to their sad and inevitable end, I
was 
tossing a tennis ball with Molly in the front yard. When Mr. C pulled into
his 
drive, she abandoned our game and bolted toward him-ignoring my calls for
her to 
return to our yard. She was sitting in front of him as he climbed out of his
car, with her pink tongue dangling and her eyes 
bright with friendly curiosity. 
He dropped his lunch pail and pressed himself against his car. I looked at
Molly but couldn't see anything scary about the little 
blond bundle of fur. As a matter of fact, I could have sworn she was
smiling.

I apologized for my free-spirited puppy, assured him that she'd never hurt
him and took the opportunity to introduce myself 
and welcome him to the neighborhood. Molly had given me the chance I'd been
waiting for to say hello. I 
didn't know it then, but Molly would be the catalyst for the unlikely
friendship that would develop between us. She made such 
a point of greeting him each evening upon his return from work that he
always had a dog biscuit in his pocket for her.

One Sunday I looked out the window in horror when I saw Mr. C jogging from
his mailbox with Molly nipping at his 
shoestrings. I was just about to rescue him when I saw him laugh, scoop her
into his arms and plant a kiss on the baby-fine 
hair on her forehead. It was the first time I'd ever seen him laugh. There's
nothing like a puppy to make the world seem a little 
brighter.

Mr. C and I ended up sitting on his front porch with a glass of tea while we
watched Molly play in his yard. It was a routine 
we would observe every Sunday afternoon for years to come. On one occasion,
Molly had been hopping in the 
grass, trying to catch a small frog and we laughed when we noticed blades of
grass clinging to her whiskers.

"My dad says she has a bit of the devil in her," I quipped.

"No," he said solemnly. "I have met him and he is not in one so filled with
love."

Molly would sit on the ground at his side with her head resting on his thigh
while Mr. C told me stories about his experience at 
Auschwitz. I could see the blue lines and numbers of the tattoo spread
across his forearm as he ran his 
hand over her fur. He spoke about the living conditions, the inhumane
treatment, and the friends he had lost. This masterful 
storyteller reminisced about the heroes who had emerged and the great acts
of courage he had witnessed. Those stories 
soon gave way to tales of his life in Germany-funny stories about his family
and his experiences growing up. He told me how 
he met his wife, the love of his life, and how he convinced her to marry him
despite her parents' 
disapproval. Sadly, she had not been one of the survivors. How, I asked him,
had 
he able to move beyond those terrible times when so many had not?

"I welcome each and every day," he said in broken English. "I remember to
greet the sun and give thanks for my food and I 
tell you stories about my loved ones so that they know I have not
forgotten."

Mr. C joined my parents and me for dinner on many occasions. When we went on
vacation, he kept Molly for us. When Molly 
had puppies, we offered him the pick of the litter. He chose the smallest
male and named him Frank Sinatra.

Many years later I got a call from my parents at college warning that Molly
was sick and not expected to survive. I made it 
home in time to say goodbye to my beloved childhood pet. Mr. C and Frank
were there to say farewell, as well.

"She saved me, you know," he said with tears in his eyes. "She saved me."

Mr. C. lived well into old age with Frank Sinatra by his side. If you had
asked him how he made his way back from the 
darkness of a concentration camp, he would have told you a lively tale about
a blond puppy named Molly who led him back 
into the sunshine.

Vicki Kitchner

end of beautiful story.