His Dogness

This column first appeared in the August 2014 issue of Forsyth Family magazine:

Although we’re officially in air-conditioning season, some early some mornings it’s cool enough to have the windows open. That was the case the morning I heard meowing I didn’t recognize outside the bathroom window.

Uh-oh. It sounded as if it could be a kitten in distress. I hoped that I was mistaken.

We already had what, to my way of thinking, was a full complement of pets – one dog named Joy and one cat named Blitz. So the prospect of a kitten that needed a home wasn’t appealing. Perhaps it was just a disgruntled adult. When I went outside to look, I heard and saw nothing. Guessing that my presence had frightened whatever it was into silence, I went back inside. Of course, once I was inside, the meowing started up in earnest again. I needed to go to work so I turned over responsibility for continuing the search to Garnet and Doobins. (Sparkle Girl was on a mission trip.)

When Garnet called later to say that she and Doobins had indeed found a kitten – an orange one – she said that, given the shape he was in, it was amazing that he had been able to meow as loudly as he did. “You could feel every bone in his body,” Doobins said.

Doobins has a gift for names, and, within the first few minutes, Garnet said, he had named the kitten Sherbert. When they took Sherbert to the vet, the ladies at the counter said that orange boys have sweet personalities. The vet said that he was probably about eight weeks old and didn’t have any problems that time, attention and food wouldn’t take care of.

Later, Garnet said that she had prayed for an enriching experience that would make Doobins’ week special while Sparkle Girl was on her trip – something that would give him stories to tell to Sparkle Girl when she was telling stories would tell about her mission trip. A new kitten was a bit more enriching than she had imagined, though. In between wondering where Sherbert had come from, I thought about how you really can’t predict what each day will bring.

I will say, though, that, as surprising as Sherbert’s arrival was, it wasn’t nearly as surprising when, a couple of weeks earlier, Garnet told me that she was a huge fan of The Dukes of Hazzard. She watched it all the time when she was growing up and was thinking that it might be nice to track down some episodes. I certainly hadn’t seen that coming. I do admit, though, that I have come to develop an appreciation for the show’s quiet genius that eluded me when it came out in 1979.

As it turned out, having Sherbert arrive while Doobins was the only young person in the house was perfect. We made him the man in charge, and he readily accepted responsibility. For the next few days, all three of us were busy people because we had to make sure that Joy and Blitz didn’t feel slighted. At times, each of us had an animal that we were giving attention.

Doobins asked us not breathe a word about Sherbert to Sparkle Girl before she came home. We agreed. He did ask Garnet to send a text to Sparkle Girl telling her that she was in for a big surprise. When we picked up Sparkle Girl at the church upon their return, Doobins spent the ride there and back smiling.
When he took Sparkle Girl into the room where Sherbert was lounging, she looked around wondering what the surprise was supposed to be. (Later, she said that she mistook him for a stuffed animal.) Then he stretched.

“And I melted,” said Sparkle Girl.

Throughout all that, Doobins sat on the bed grinning. Since then, Sherbert has given us many enriching experiences. Every now and then, I wonder whether other surprises as big as The Dukes of Hazzard still await me.