Chapter 15 2

With Jenny's help, I lifted Marley into the back of the car.She gave him a final hug and I drove off with him, promising her I'd call home as soon as I found out.He was lying on the back seat, and I steered the wheel with one hand and reached behind me with the other so I could stroke his head and shoulders. "Oh, Marley," I kept murmuring. In the animal hospital parking lot, I helped Marley out of the car, and he stopped to sniff a tree - where the other dogs had peed - and no matter how uncomfortable he was, he stayed high curiosity.I gave him a minute, knowing that this might be his last time in the great outdoors that he loved, and then, with a gentle tug on his choker chain, I led him into the hall.Once inside the front door, he decided he had gone far enough, and lay down cautiously on the tiled floor.When neither the staff nor I could get him back up, they brought a stretcher, slid his body onto it, and disappeared behind the counter into the inspection area with him.

A few minutes later, a young female veterinarian I had never seen before came out and led me into an exam room where she placed several x-rays on the identification light control box.She pointed out to me that Marley's stomach had swollen to twice its normal size. The x-rays showed two fist-sized black spots near where his stomach joined his intestines, which she told me indicated a gastrointestinal kinking.For the last time, she said she would sedate him and insert a catheter into his stomach to release the gas that caused the puffiness.She then guides the catheter by feel to the opposite side of the stomach. "It's a long injection," she said, "but I'm going to try to use the catheter to massage his stomach back into place." The situation is exactly the same for a diagnosis with a 1 percent chance of success.This has happened before, and this time, Marley should be able to escape once again.There is a silent optimism in my heart.

"Well," I said, "try your best." Half an hour later, a sad look appeared on her face.She's tried three times, but still can't open his gag.She gave him more painkillers, hoping to relax his stomach muscles.When that didn't work, she inserted a catheter through the middle of his ribs as a last resort, trying to clear the blockage, which also failed. "At this point," she said, "the only real option we have is to have surgery." She paused for a moment, as if wondering whether I was ready to discuss the inevitable with her, and then "Alternatively, the most humane approach may be to euthanize him," he said.

In fact, as early as five months ago, Jenny and I had already faced the moment when we had to make a quick decision, and after a lot of inner pain, we had already made a difficult choice.My visit to Shakeswell only strengthened my resolve not to subject Marley to any more pain.But now, when faced with a decision again, I stood blankly in the waiting room.Sensing the pain I was in, the doctor reassured me that for a dog Marley's age, the chances of complications after surgery were very high.Another thing that troubled her, she said, was that a blood sample from the catheter showed that Marley also had problems in the lining of his stomach. "Who knows what we might find there?" she said.

I told her I wanted to go out and call my wife.In the phone booth in the parking lot, I told Jenny that they had tried everything except surgery, but nothing had worked.We were silent on the phone for a long time, and finally, she broke the silence: "I love you, John." "I love you too, Jenny," I said. I walked back inside and asked the doctor if I could be alone with Marley for a while.She reminded me that he was heavily sedated and therefore unable to communicate with me. "You can stay as long as you like, don't worry," she said.I found Marley completely unconscious in a stretcher on the floor, with an IV in his forearm.I got down on my knees and ran my fingers through his fur, the way he liked it.I put my hand on his back.I cupped his floppy ears in each of my hands - those crazy ears that have caused him so much trouble over the years and cost us billions of dollars - and felt them the weight of.I lifted his lips and looked at his dirty, worn teeth.I picked up one of his front paws and held it in my hand.Then I dropped my forehead against his and sat like that for a long time, as if I could send a message through our skulls, from my brain to his.I hope to make him understand something.

"You know what we've been saying about you?" I whispered, "What a headache you are? Don't believe it. This moment, don't believe it. Marley." He needs to know this , and many more things.There are things I never told him, nobody ever said to him.I want him to hear it before he leaves. "Marley," I said, "you're a great dog." I found the doctor waiting at the reception. "I'm ready," I said.My voice trembled, which surprised me because I truly believed I had been preparing for this moment months before.I know if I say one more word, I'm going to have a complete breakdown.So when she handed me the form to apply for euthanasia, I just nodded.When I finished the text section, I followed her back to the unconscious Marley.I knelt down before him again, cupping his head in my hands as the doctor prepared a syringe and inserted it into the access between blood vessels in his body. "Are you okay?" she asked with concern.I nodded, and she pushed the plunger in the needle.His jaw trembled ever so slightly.She listened to his heart and said it was beating very slowly, but it didn't stop.He is a great dog with tenacious vitality.She prepared a second syringe and pushed the plunger again.A minute later, she listened to her heart again, and said, "He's gone." She left the room so that I could have a moment alone with him.I lifted one of his eyelids slightly, and she was right: Marley had gone.

I walked out of the room, went to the front desk, and paid the medical bill.She asked me if I would choose a "group cremation" for $75 or an individual cremation for $170 to get the ashes. "No," I replied, "I'm taking him home." A few minutes later, she and an assistant emerged with a cart with a large black body bag on it. Then they helped me carry the bag into the back seat of the car.The doctor shook hands with me and told me she was very sorry. "I did my best," she said. "Don't beat yourself up, just because his time has come," I said.Then, after thanking her, I drove off.

On the drive home, I burst into tears in the car.It's something I've never done, not even at a funeral, I've never cried.The crying lasted only a few minutes.By the time I pulled into the driveway, my eyes were dry.I left Marley in the car and went inside.Jenny was standing at the door waiting.The kids are in bed; we'll tell them the sad news in a gentle way in the morning.We fell into each other's arms and started to cry.I tried to describe Marley's departure to Jenny, assuring her that when the moment came, Marley was in a deep sleep, so there was no panic, no damage, no pain.But I couldn't find any words to describe it to her.So we just hugged each other tightly.Afterwards, we walked out of the house, and together we lifted the heavy black body bag out of the car and onto the garden cart I used to check in the trash at night.

Sleep was fitful that night, and an hour before dawn I slid out of bed and got dressed quietly so I wouldn't wake Jenny up.I went to the kitchen for a glass of water—the coffee would take a while—and stepped out into a soft, muddy drizzle.I took a shovel and a pickaxe and walked into a pea field.The field is fringed with white pine trees, where Marley had found his defecation shelter last winter.So I decided to make this his resting place. Despite the physical effort involved in digging the cave—my heart was pounding like I had just run a marathon—I gave up on the site.I searched in the yard, and stopped at the place where the lawn meets the woods at the foot of the mountain.I stood between two giant wild cherry trees, their branches joining and intersecting in the air to form an arch above my head, a path of foliage against the pale gray sky at dawn. The arches are like the dome of a church.I put down my shovel.It was among these cherries that Marley and I traveled on that wild sleigh ride we will never forget.So I said out loud, "Here it is." The site was under a subsoil foundation where bulldozers had laid down shale (a breakable rock made up of layers of fine-grained sediment like dirt), so the original dirt Relatively soft, has been drained of water.This is the soil texture of a gardener's dream.As the digging was so easy, I soon dug a full oval hole three feet wide and four feet deep.I walked back into the house to find all three children up, sobbing silently.It looks like Jenny just broke them the news of Marley's departure.

Seeing them grieving so much—their first experience of dying so close—I was deeply moved.Yes, Marley was just a dog, and over the course of a man's life dogs come and go, sometimes simply because they become a nuisance.He's just a dog, and yet every time I try to talk to them about Marley, tears come to my eyes.I tell them that crying is not a bad thing and that having a dog always ends in this kind of sadness because dogs don't live as long as people do.I told them Marley was sleeping when the doctor gave him the injection so he wouldn't be in pain.He just drifted away.Colleen was very sad that she hadn't had a chance to say a formal goodbye to Marley; she had expected him to come home.I told her I had said goodbye to Marley for all of us.Crowe, the little writer in our family, showed me his text for Marley, which he wanted to keep with him in his grave.It was a card with a big red heart drawn on it and the words: "To Marley, I want you to know how much I love you. You were always there when I needed you. I will love you forever, from life to death. Your brother, Crow Richard Gerrogan." Then Colleen also drew a picture of a little girl and a big yellow dog, in the With the help of her brother, she scribbled the words below the picture: "PS: I will never forget you."

I went outside alone and wheeled Marley's body to the foot of the hill, where I chopped down a bunch of soft pine branches and spread them on the cave floor.I lifted the heavy zippered body bag off the cart and lowered it into the cave as gently as I could.I jumped inside the cave, opened the bag, took one last look at Marley, and positioned him in a comfortable, natural position, the way he was lying in front of the fireplace: curled up, head bent at one side . "Ok, old man, that's it." I said.I zipped the bag back up and went back inside to pick up Jenny and the kids. Our family went to the grave.Crowe and Colleen glued their cards back to back and put them in a plastic bag, and I placed it next to Marley's head.Patrick used his jackknife to chop off five pine branches and gave each of us a branch.One by one we dropped the twigs into the cave, their smell rising around us.We paused for a moment, and then, as if rehearsing, we said in unison, "Marley, we love you." I picked up the shovel and dropped the first shovel into the cave.The dirt thumped against the plastic bag, making a nasty noise, and Jenny began to sob.I continued to shovel the soil.The children stood still, watching all this. I stopped when the cave was half filled.We went back inside, sat around the kitchen table, and told some funny things about Marley.Sometimes we had tears in our eyes, and sometimes we laughed.Jenny told the story of how Marley went wild when a stranger picked up Crowe, who was a baby at the time, during the filming of "Last Home Run."I told stories of how he would go on a rampage with the leash around his neck and piss on our neighbor's ankle.We pictured everything he destroyed, and the thousands of dollars we spent doing it.Now, we can talk about it all with a smile on our face.To make the kids feel better, I told them things that I didn't even believe in myself. "Marley's spirit is now in dog heaven," I said, "and he's running free across a great golden prairie. His ponytail is back. His hearing is back. His sight is back." Sharpened up again. And all his teeth are back in. He's back to his main thing—chasing bunnies all day." "And there are tons of screens for him to walk through," adds Jenny. We all burst out laughing at the image of him roaming free and easy in dog heaven. That morning passed, and I still had to go to work at the newspaper.I walked alone to his grave, filled the hole, and filled the hole with soft earth, gently and respectfully, with my boots.When the hole was level with the ground, I placed two large rocks from the woods over the grave, and then I went back to the house, took a hot shower, and drove to the office. For a while after we buried Marley, the whole family fell silent.This animal, which for many years has been the entertainment of our conversations and stories, has become a taboo subject.We were trying to get our lives back to normal, and talking about Marley only made it harder.Colleen especially couldn't stand hearing Marley's name or seeing his picture.Tears would come to her eyes, and then she would clenched her little fists and say angrily, "I don't want to talk about Marley!" "I know," I said, "I miss him too." I wanted to write a farewell column for Marley, but I feared that all my emotions would pour out into a fragile, emotionally over-indulgent self-indulgence that would only make me feel ashamed.So I continue to write about topics that are not closest to my mood at the moment.However, I carry a tape recorder with me, and whenever an idea comes to my mind, I record it.I know I want to portray him as he is, not to embellish his image.Many people remodel their pets when they are temporary, turning them into incredible, regal animals that do everything for their owners except fry eggs for breakfast.I wish I could be more honest.Marley is an animal that has never been able to understand and obey the military management system.Honestly, he's probably the worst-behaved dog in the world.From the very beginning, however, he grasped the essentials of what makes man's best friend. During the week after his death, I walked to the foot of the hill several times and stood by his grave.Part of it was because I wanted to make sure no beasts had been here in the night.The grave has remained undisturbed, but I can already foresee that in the spring I will need to add two wheelbarrows of soil to fill in the depression where it is sinking.Most of the time, I just wish I could talk to him heart to heart.As I stood there, I found myself running through bits and pieces of his life.I'm embarrassed that I'm saddened by Marley's passing more than I've felt by the death of someone I've known.It's not that I equate a dog's life with a human's, but because, outside of my family, few people have ever been so selfless for me.I got Marley's choker chain out of the car.The chain had been in the car since Marley's last drive to the hospital, and I hid it in my underwear in my closet every morning when I reached into the closet to get my clothes When the time comes, the chain will be touched. This week I have been a little muddled, and I have a dull pain in my body.It's actually physical, kind of like a stomachache.I was lethargic and lifeless.I couldn't even concentrate on my hobbies - playing guitar, woodworking, reading.I feel very unhappy and don't know what to do with myself.I go to bed early most nights, sometimes at nine-thirty, sometimes at ten. On New Year's Eve, we were invited to a party at a neighbor's house.Friends were quietly expressing their condolences, but we tried to keep the conversation light.After all, it's New Year's Eve.At dinner, Sarah and Dave Pender, a pair of landscaping technicians who moved back to Pennsylvania from California, our closest friends, sat with me at the corner of the table and we talked for a long time , about dogs, love, and loss.Five years ago, Dave and Sarah buried their beloved border collie, Nell, a boxy, usually black-and-white English sheepdog used for herding, on the hill next to their farmhouse.Dave was one of the least expressive people I've ever met, a quiet, highly restrained, taciturn Pennsylvania Dutchman.However, when Nell was mentioned, he also revealed a deep sadness in his heart.He told me that he had spent days groping through the rocky woods until he found the perfect stone for her grave.The stone is shaped almost like a heart.So he gave the stone to a stone carver who carved "Nell" into the surface of the stone.Even after all these years, the dog's death will still touch them deeply.Their eyes watered as they told me about Nell.As Sara said, with tears in her eyes, sometimes a dog comes into your life that really moves your life and you will never forget her . I took a long walk in the woods on the weekends that week, and by the time I got back to work on Monday, I knew I wanted to talk about the dog that touched my life, a The dog I will never forget. At the beginning of my column, I described how I walked down the hill at dawn with a shovel in hand, and how strange it was to be out in the open without Marley, who would be by my side for thirteen years. Going out for a hike next to him is his own business. "Now, however, I am alone," I wrote, "digging this cave for him." I quote my father when I tell him that I must bury the old chap in the field and give my little bit to the closest thing my dog ​​has never received before, "There won't be another dog like Marley in the world," he said. I thought long and hard about how I should describe Marley, and finally I decided to write: "No one ever called him a great dog, or even a good dog. He was like Banshee (Irish) As wild as the ghost of Gaelic folklore, whose howling heralds death in the family), he was as strong as a bull. He lived a happy life on the rampage. He had a A penchant associated with natural disasters such as thunderstorms. He is the only dog ​​I know who has been expelled from obedience school.” I continued, “Marley would chew up couches, smash screens, drool, and shovel in the trash As for the mind, all I can say is that he chased his tail until the day he died." However, there is much more to his story than that, so I also describe his keen Intuition, his tenderness towards children, and his pure heart. What I really want to say is how this animal touched our souls deeply and taught us some of the most important lessons in life. "One can learn a lot from a dog, even one as insane as Marley," I wrote. Live each day with joy. He taught me to seize every moment and listen to my inner voice. He taught me to appreciate the simple things—a walk in the woods, a A freshly fallen snow, a nap under the warm winter sun. As he gradually became old and sick, he taught me that life's adversity should be faced with a smile of optimism. The main thing More importantly, he taught me the true meaning of friendship, selflessness, and most importantly, his rock-solid loyalty." It was only after Marley left that I fully understood an amazing truth: Marley was a mentor, a friend, and a role model.Is it possible for a dog—especially one as rabid and unruly as our Marley—to point out to humans what really matters in life?I believe it is possible.Loyalty, courage, selflessness, simplicity, joy, and what doesn't matter.A dog is of no use to you if you live in a mansion, drive a fancy car, or wear fancy clothes.A status symbol meant nothing to him.In his eyes, a wooden stick soaked in water may be more valuable.A dog judges others not by their color, creed, or class, but by what is inside them.A dog doesn't mind if you are rich or poor, highly educated or illiterate, smart or dull.If you give your heart to him, then he will give his heart to you.In fact, these principles are really very simple, but we humans, who are much smarter and more complex than a dog, always have a hard time understanding what is really important and what is irrelevant.As I wrote in my farewell column for Marley, I realize what really lies ahead of us if only we open our eyes.Sometimes it takes a dog with bad smell, bad manners, and pure intentions to help us discover these simple yet profound truths. I finished my column, turned it over to my editor, and drove home in the evening.For some reason, I felt so much lighter, almost a lightness, like a weight that I didn't even know I was carrying was lifted from me. When I got to the office the next morning, I logged into my computer and opened my e-mail.The first screen was full of new messages, the next screen was full of new messages, and so was the next screen, with new email messages taking up several screens.For me, checking emails every morning is a routine, an instinct, because the volume of emails, as well as the positive and negative reviews, are a barometer of how the column is getting in the readership.Some columns get as few as five or ten reader responses, while others get as many as dozens of letters.But this morning, the inbox was filled with hundreds of emails, more than I've ever received at one time.The e-mails were subject to phrases such as "Deepest condolences," or simply "Marley." One couple wrote: "We totally understand how you feel, we are so sad you lost Marley and we lost Rusty. We will miss them forever and their place in our hearts Irreplaceable." A reader named Joyce wrote: "Thank you for reminding us of Duncan buried in our own backyard." A suburbanite named Derby added : "Our whole family understands how you feel. This past Labor Day we had to have doctors euthanize our golden retriever Joey. He lived thirteen years and suffered a lot with your dog. Same ordeal. When he couldn't even get up to pee outside on the last day, we knew we couldn't let him suffer anymore. We also buried him under a red maple tree in our backyard, This will be his eternal memory." After a few days, when the messages finally stopped coming in, I added them up.Almost eight hundred readers, all animal lovers, were so moved by my article that they wrote to contact me.The deluge of emails was incredible, and what an emotional release it was for me.By the time I had painstakingly read them all, and responded as best I could, I felt much better, as if I were part of a larger community.My personal grief has turned into a public healing session, and, among the crowd, acknowledging real, heart-wrenching grief for something as seemingly insignificant as an old, smelly dog , is something without any sense of shame. There is another reason why my readers write to me.They disagreed with one of the major premise I set up in the article, which was my insistence that Marley was the worst-behaved animal in the world. "Sorry," typical feedback goes, "but your dog can't be the worst dog in the world because mine is." Numerous details of the pet's deplorable behavior.I've been told about torn curtains, stolen lingerie, eaten birthday cakes, and even swallowed diamond engagement rings.By comparison, Marley's act of tasting the gold necklace seemed very shallow and vulgar.My e-mail is like a TV talk show called "Bad Dogs and People Who Love Them" with willing victims lining up to brag with pride, however, they're not bragging about their dogs How great it is, but how terrible their dog is.Oddly enough, most horror stories involve a large, unhinged hound, like our Marley.We are no longer alone at last. A woman named Eliza described how when her Labrador, Mo, was left alone in the house, he would always rush out of the house, usually by smashing through the screens.Eliza and her husband believe they have blocked Mo's way out by closing and locking all first-floor windows.But they didn't think of the need to close the windows on the second floor. "My husband came home one day and saw the screens on the second floor come loose. He was terrified and looked around for him," she wrote, just as her husband began to imagine the worst-case scenario, leading to fear At the extreme, "Mo suddenly appeared around the corner of the house. He hung his head and knew he was in big trouble. However, we were surprised that he was unharmed. It turned out that he flew out of the second floor window. , fell into the bushes." A Labrador named Larry swallowed his mistress' bra and 10 days later he hiccupped and spat out a piece of it.Another Labrador named Gypsy, with even more adventurous tastes, devoured one of the shutters.Jason, an Irish Setter crossbreed, swallowed a five-foot vacuum cleaner tube. "And the steel wire inside," wrote his owner, Mike, "Jensen also ate a hole two or three feet deep in a plaster wall and shoveled a three-foot hole in the carpet. ’” Mike reported to me.Finally, he added, "Still, I love this animal dearly." After Phoebe, a cross-breed Labrador, was kicked out of two different boarding boards and told never to come back, dog owner Amy wrote: "She seems to be Like a gang leader, not only escaped from her cage, but also helped two other dogs escape. Then, they ate all the snacks in the pet boarding office at night ’” Hayden, a hundred-pound Labrador, eats anything within reach of his mouth, owner Carolyn told me, including a whole A box of fish food, a pair of sheepskin loafers, and a bottle of superglue. "And that's not all," she added, "the most amazing thing he ever did was tear the garage door frame off the wall because, so that he could lie in the sun, I foolishly tied his belt to the door frame." Tim told me that his yellow Labrador, Ralph, was as much a food thief as Marley, only smarter.One day, before heading out, Tim puts a box of chocolates on top of the fridge, thinking it will be safe from Ralph's "claws".Unexpectedly, the dog, his owner reported, plowed open the closet drawers with great effort, then used them as stairs to climb up the kitchen counter, where he could stand on his hind legs and touch the Here comes the box of chocolates.So, when his owner got home, the box of chocolates was gone.Despite eating too much chocolate, Ralph did not have any adverse reactions. "Another time," Tim writes, "Ralph opened the fridge and ate all the stock in it, including the bottles and jars." Nancy cut my column because Marley reminded her of her terrier, Gracie. "I left the article on the kitchen table and left the kitchen to get the scissors," Nancy wrote. "And sure enough, Gracie had eaten the column when I got back to the kitchen." Wow!I feel really better now.Marley wasn't such a bad guy anymore, because he still had a lot of friends in the Bad Dog Club.I printed out a few emails and took them home to share with Jenny, who was smiling so much for the first time since Marley left.My new friends in the Secret League of Owners of Behaving Dogs have helped Jenny and me more than they could have imagined on their own. In the blink of an eye, several weeks have passed, and it is early spring.水仙花从土里伸展了出来，在马利的坟墓周围灿烂地绽放着，娇弱的白色樱桃花飘落了下来，覆盖在了坟墓上。慢慢地，没有了我们的狗的生活，变得越来越舒服了。日子一天天地流逝着，有时候，我甚至都没有想到马利了。然后，某些小小的提示——比如，粘在我毛衣上的他的一缕狗毛，当我将手伸进抽屉里去拿一双袜子的时候，他的贴颈铁链所发出的卡塔声——又突然地把他带回到了我的脑海里。随着时间的逝去，当我回忆起他的时候，更多感到的是快乐，而不是痛苦。那些遗忘已久的时刻，就像是被播放的家庭录像一样，栩栩如生地浮现在了我的眼前：遭到歹徒刺伤的受害者利萨在出院之后，是怎样倾斜着身体、亲吻着马利的口鼻部；电影摄制组的人员是怎样讨好和奉承着马利的；女邮递员是怎样在前门被马利吓得魂飞魄散、滑倒在地的；当他轻咬着芒果的果肉时，他是怎样用他的前爪握着那个芒果的；他是怎样脸上挂着一副如痴如醉的表情轻咬着婴儿尿布的；以及他是怎样把镇静剂误当作成鱼片而苦苦哀求着我们喂给他吃……这些小小的片段几乎不值得被记住，然而，此刻，无意之中，它们就如同电影画面一般在我的脑海中上演着，如此清晰、如此生动，就好像是发生在昨天一样。大多数的片段都会让我会心一笑，有些片断则会使我轻咬起嘴唇。 当这些片段又一次浮现在了我脑海中的时候，我正在办公室里开员工会议。这一次，我的思绪回到了西棕榈海滩。那时候，马利还只是一只小狗，詹妮和我还只是一对充满幻想的新婚夫妇。在一个清爽的冬日，我们正沿着近岸内航道散步，手牵着手，马利则冲锋在前，一路拖着我们前行。我让他跳上了距离水面三尺高、两尺宽、由混凝土铸成的防浪堤。“约翰，”詹妮反对道，“他会掉下去的。”我怀疑地看着她。“你认为他那么愚蠢吗？”我问道，“你认为他将会怎么做呢？离开防浪堤的边缘，落进稀薄的空中去吗？”不幸的是，十秒钟之后，他确实就是那样做了。他落到了水中，溅起了巨大的水花，要求我们进行紧急援救，把他重新拉回到了陆地上。 几天之后，当我们婚姻中的一幕较早的场景浮现于眼前的时候，我正开着车行驶在一次访谈的路上：那时候孩子们还没有到来，新娘、新郎以及马利，前往塞尼拜尔岛上海滨区的一个小别墅，度过一个浪漫的周末假期。我原本差不多已经完全忘记了那次周末，然而现在，它又色彩鲜明地浮现在了我的脑海中：我驾车穿过了佛罗里达州，马利挤在我们中间坐着，他的鼻子偶尔会把变速排档杆碰撞成空档。在海滩上玩耍了一天之后，我们在居住的别墅的浴缸里面给他洗澡，他把肥皂泡、水和沙子溅得到处都是。之后，詹妮和我便在凉爽的棉质被单下面做爱，从海面上吹来的微风轻拂着我们，马利那条与水獭的尾巴极为酷似的尾巴，则“砰砰”地重击在床垫上面。 他是我们生活中一些最开心的篇章中的主角——年轻的爱情和新的开始的篇章，刚刚萌芽的工作和小婴儿的篇章。就在我们尝试着去构想和规划新生活的时候，他走进了我们的生活之中。在我们经历着每一对夫妇都必然会面临的各种欢喜悲哀的时候，他与我们一起共同经历着，感受着。他成为了在我们所编织的这副人生图景当中的一个不可缺少的部分。就在我们将他塑造为一只家庭宠物的同时，他也塑造了我们—－作为夫妇、作为父母、作为动物爱好者、作为成年人的角色。尽管马利给我们带来过诸多的麻烦和失望，尽管我们对他的一些期望永远地落空了，然而，他仍然是上帝赐给我们生命中的一份礼物，一份无价的礼物。他教会了我们无条件的爱的艺术——如何去给予，如何去接受。与这种伟大的爱的艺术相比，其他的一切都显得不重要了。 在他死后的那一年夏天，我们在院子里安装了一个游泳池，于是我便情不自禁地想到了马利，我们那只永远不知疲倦的有水性的狗，将会是多么地热爱这个游泳池啊，其热爱程度很有可能将会超过我们中的任何一个人。令詹妮感到颇为吃惊的是，当不再有一只狗在屋子里面掉狗毛、流口水、留下黑黑的脚印的时候，想要保持房子的洁净是多么容易的一件事情。我也承认，赤裸着双脚走在草坪上，而不必再边走边小心翼翼地查看，的确是一件让人舒心不已的事情。没有了一只狗在里面重重地刨地、肆意地穿来跑去，花园里的花花草草也生长得更加灿烂和茁壮了。毋庸置疑，没有了一只狗，生活将会变得更加容易、更加简单。我们可以在周末去短途旅行，而不需要为了给狗安排膳宿问题而费尽脑汁。我们可以出外去享受一顿美味的晚餐，而不需要为那处在危险境地之中的传家宝物而忧心忡忡。孩子们可以尽情地享受美食，而不需要时时刻刻都得注意去保护他们的餐盘。当我们离开的时候，不需要再将废物拿到厨房的台子上。当一场电闪雷鸣的暴风雨到来的时候，我们可以再一次安宁地坐在窗前，聆听着风声、雨声。我尤其喜欢当我在房子里面走动时，不再有一个巨大的黄色磁铁紧紧地粘在我的脚后跟上的这种自由自在。 然而，我们却觉得，这个家，不再是完整的了。 在那年盛夏的一个早晨，我走下楼去吃早餐，詹妮递给我了一张报纸，上面有一处被她折了起来。“你肯定不会相信的。”她说道。 我们当地的报纸每周都会给一只来自于动物收容所的、需要一个家庭的狗进行一次特写报道，通常还会附有一张这只狗的侧面照、它的名字以及一段简短的描述，而且会采用第一人称，就好像是这只狗在亲口讲述一样。这是那些收容所里的人们惯用的伎俩，目的是要使得这些动物们显得迷人和可爱。我们总是会觉得这只犬科动物的履历十分有趣，倒不是因为其他的原因，而是由于那种想在这些至少被人遗弃过一次的动物身上投去最美好的光环的努力。 在这一天，我在报纸的页面上看到的这张动物照片里的狗的面孔，让我立刻就联想到了我们的马利。或许，这只狗很有可能就是和马利一胎生的同胞兄弟。这是一只雄性的拉布拉多犬，个头很大，毛发是黄色的，有一个像铁砧一样的脑袋，皮肤上长着褐色的深皱，他那两个松塌塌的耳朵以一种十分可笑的角度向后竖立着。他就那样直直地、全神贯注地盯着摄影机的镜头，以致于你完全可以想象到，几秒钟之后，在快门的那一声咔哒以及闪光灯的那一道强光之后，他就会扑上前去，将那位摄影师撞倒在地，并且试图吞下那个摄影机。照片的下面印有这只狗的名字：幸运。我大声地读着有关他的特点介绍。“幸运”是这样介绍他自己的：“充满了活力！当我学习着如何去控制我的能量水平的话，那么我将会在一个家里表现得很好的。我并不想过一种安逸的、简单的生活，所以，我的新家必须要对我很有耐心，并且需要继续教我有关犬科动物的诸多礼貌行为。” “我的上帝，”我叫喊道，“是他。他起死回生了。” “不是起死回生，而是投胎转世了。”詹妮纠正说。 “幸运”和马利长得实在是出奇得像，而且报纸上有关他的描述，也说明他与马利十分相似。充满了活力？控制精力的问题？学习犬科动物的礼貌行为？需要耐心？我们对这些委婉的说法实在是再熟悉不过了，甚至我们自己也用过这一套字眼。我们那只精神失常的狗又回来了，再一次年轻、强壮了，而且，比以前更加狂野了！我们两个站在那儿，凝视着报纸，什么也没有说。 “我猜我们可以去看一看他。”最后，我终于打破了沉默。 “就是觉得挺好玩的。”詹妮补充道。 “对。只是有点儿好奇罢了。” “看一看又不会有什么害处，不是吗？” “完全没有一点儿害处。”我表示绝对同意。 “那么，好吧，”詹妮说道，“为什么不可以呢？” “难道我们会有什么损失吗？” (End of the book)