Into The Light

Two years ago at this time Eileen and I were both in treatment. When we made our summer bucket list, it had things like ‘eat at a restaurant where we don’t know the calories’ and ‘eat a scary food’ and ‘stay out of the hospital’. 

Now we’re both in California, and today we checked off the first two things on this summer’s bucket list— ‘road trip along the coast’ and ‘go to Santa Cruz’.  Along the way we ate ice cream and got lost on back roads through nature preserves and hopped out of the car every time we saw something pretty.  

When my parents are out of town, my pup Remmy sleeps downstairs with me. I don’t mind because the basement is chilly sometimes and he’s a fuzzy little space heater. But he always does this weird thing and I didn’t figure out why until last night.

I’m a stomach-sleeper, while the rest of my family are back-sleepers. So Remmy has taken up this very different behavior with me (my family says he doesn’t do it with them). It always takes me a while to settle down, but when I do, Remmy takes his head off of his paws and rests it square in the center of my back.

So I’m thinking, “What’s the point of that? It can’t be comfortable. It cranes his neck in a funny way, and besides, every time I breathe his head goes up and down. That’s a weird thing.” So I formulate a hypothesis, and test it.

Last night, I got comfortable, Remmy put his head on my back, I waited a while, then I held my breath. It took him a while to react, but when he did, he fuckin lost it. He started whining and yipping, and repeatedly licking my face and hands. And I was like oh my god.

Conclusion: my dog noticed that I slept in a way that was different from the rest of my family, thought “that kid is gonna die” and made sure that I never stopped breathing in the middle of the night.