It Was Crazy to Buy My Aging Mother a Puppy. It Was Also Brilliant. [View all]
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Five years ago my sister and I, in a moment of lunacy, bought our mother, the writer Anne Roiphe, a tiny maltipoo in the hopes of assuaging her loneliness in this phase of life. We knew this was a controversial decision. She lived alone. Her mobility was terrible. She could barely walk around her apartment with a cane. How could she take care of a puppy?
My mother, however, was thrilled. Ajax immediately snuggled onto her lap. But he was also an agent of chaos. He chewed her books. He chewed through photo albums. He left half-chewed lamb and turtle toys for her to trip over. He ruined all of her rugs. But what would these last years have been like for my mother without Ajax? We generally condescend to animal love. We underestimate it, dismiss it, place it low on the hierarchy of affections, but maybe this is wrong. Ajax occupies an exalted place in my mother’s household. She is far more attuned to his every fluctuation of mood than I am with, say, my children.
Ajax is feted, petted, spoiled to such an extent that he is more maharajah than dog. My mother picks him up so much that he never learned to jump on or off a bed or sofa; he will not walk up stairs. Instead, he waits patiently for someone to carry him. He barks when she eats because she feeds him directly from her plate, though she denies it. He has an unruly mop of white hair just like her. “Ajax is not really a pet,” she once told me.
He gives her day narrative form. The need to feed him, give him water or worry about whether he is sick or tired or bored structures otherwise dreamy and floating patches of time. She ends the day with the warmth of his furry body next to hers in bed. Being needed or doted on by another creature is grounding.
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In the hospital, my mother tells a nurse about Ajax. “Like the cleaning product?” The nurse asks. “No, the brave warrior from Greek mythology. He is in the Iliad.”
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On Edit: this is not my story, I only copies and posted here because it really warmed my heart.
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