Three Little Boys
Spring has finally come to Northern Illinois, and with it memories that arrive on scents in the wind. This one drifted by the other day: My heart dog, Elika, was just a baby, maybe six months old. She’d been living with me for about a month. It was April or May, a sunny spring day, so we took a ride to the beach. Dogs weren’t allowed on Chicago beaches during beach season — Memorial day to Labor Day — but no one cared if we let our dogs run around on them in the off-season.
I was sitting in the sand, the sun on my face. Elika started digging, an intense, focused look on her face. She was not messing around. She never looked up, never looked around. She just kept digging. Down, down, down, occasionally paddling a front leg to the side to widen the hole. As you can see in the photo, she was a little girl, but she was digging a spectacular hole.
While she was working, a little boy, maybe five or six, was walking by with his father. The little boy stopped, watched Elika from a distance for a few seconds, and then came over. Without a word, he dropped to his knees and started digging with her. She never looked at him. He never looked at her. They just dug together, sand flying.
After a few minutes, the little boy got up and walked back to his father. His father smiled at me as he took his son’s hand.
This memory came a day later: On another trip to this beach, sometime in the summer, Elika and I were walking along a paved path. A small group of young boys, 10 or 11, stood together, talking and laughing. As we passed, one of the boys said how beautiful Elika was and asked if he could pet her. Elika loved little boys, so I said sure.
Then the little boy said, “I had a dog. But the soldiers shot him.”
What?
The little boy was from yet another country ravaged by war. He had been walking his dog when a group of soldiers walked by. The dog, protecting the boy, barked. A soldier turned, and without a word, shot the dog.
I think about that little boy from time to time. I wish I had known what to say other than How awful, or I’m sorry, or whatever I said. I wish I had been able to erase the pain from his heart, just wipe it clean.
The other day, I saw a clip of a little boy, five, maybe six; it was hard to tell because he was bundled up in so many clothes. He was in Ukraine, a few feet from the Polish border, stumbling towards it, a plastic bag in one hand, full of what? Everything? He was alone. He was crying. I’m sure I will never forget that little boy.
A friend said today, “I think we all need to do our very best in these times to do no harm.”
I will leave you with that thought. And with the image of my beloved Elika and her little friend digging a hole in the sand on a sunny spring afternoon.
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Reprinted from the March 9 edition of Bits & Pieces, a short, weekly newsletter about animal communication, Reiki healing, and living in peace.
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