Kermit & The Great Gilda
Episode 04:10:2023 - Prompt: Forgiveness
Where forgiveness took me…
His name was Kermit.
A German shepherd Labrador puppy we got when I was six. His look favored the shepherd coloring and course coat, but his ears and head were smooth like a Lab.
Kermit needed a lot of exercise by the time he was full-sized, but I’d walk Kermit as far as it took him to poop.
Then I’d turn around and go home…
As if all the dog needed was a toilet.
By the time we moved back to the city, walking Kermit was a real challenge. My mom was working full-time. I was in a new school. The neighborhood wasn’t safe.
I began to resent him.
After Kermit died, we didn’t get a dog again for a while.
In my one semester in a college dorm, I told a harmless story about Kermit.
And I broke down in tears…
“I abused Kermit,” I admitted to my new friends.
I never hit or harmed him, but I realized neglect and resentment were forms of abuse. Kermit only wanted affection, food, and exercise.
A dog’s life.
I swore I’d never have a dog if I couldn’t properly give it that life. Our three subsequent dogs, post-Kermit, have all been rescue dogs.
Each - in its own way - rescued us.
Which brings me to Gilda.
The campo giveth. The campo taketh away.
September 2021. I drove to town to walk Ragazzo - our current dog who showed up on Christmas day in 2017. As I turned off the highway onto our dirt road, I noticed a parked car. The driver was on the phone outside.
He seemed distressed.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
And then I saw her.
A full-grown Mastín Español (Spanish mastiff) can weigh up to 150-200 lbs. and stand at 4-feet tall. They’re an ancient breed of protectors of livestock. We see them often around here as land and property guardians.
While they are huge and intimidating, Mastins are mostly loyal and loving.
The man asked if the dog was mine.
He had herded her off the highway onto our road for safety. She had a chain around her neck. Her eyes were sunken into her sockets. Her ribs were visible.
He didn’t know what to do. If he went back onto the highway, she would wander back out. But he couldn’t stay or fit her in his car.
I brought some food to lure her to safety.
I was confident we could put the dog in our truck and take her to ASAP (Alhama Street Animal Protection) where she would be cared for and adopted.
But ASAP was at full capacity.
I looked at the Mastin winking at me with dry eyes and decided to name her Gilda in memory of Radner’s wink-y character, Roseanne Roseannadanna.
We couldn’t keep Gilda. Or could we?
This can/can’t conversation went on for days as we rehabilitated Gilda. Her eyes became brighter. She gained weight. The vet said she wasn’t chipped.
The problem was Kermit.
I had made a promise to myself - in an act of forgiveness - that I wouldn’t keep a dog I couldn’t care for properly.
We didn’t have land for Gilda, and she couldn’t come inside - she was too big - and Ragazzo and she tussled a few times about position.
I had to find her a good home, and I had 5 days to do it before leaving for a week.
Mastins are popular here, but many are abandoned. I posted in FB groups, contacted organizations, got messages from people who wanted to breed her.
Gilda would not be a Handmaid, I said.
Finally, a neighbor active in the animal rescue community contacted me about a family who wanted Gilda. They had land, kids, horses, other dogs, and were 30-minutes away.
They could pick her up that evening.
Ana, the hopeful new owner, Whatsapp’d me for directions. I sent our location pin. As I stood at the top of the road to make sure they made the turn, I realized I didn’t know anything about them.
I looked at Ana’s profile photo. She was kissing the cheek of a man I figured was her husband, Oscar. Then I saw the tattoo on his left cheekbone: the interlocking LA of the Dodger’s logo.
We were not in Los Angeles.
Why would he have this tattoo on his face?
When Ana and Oscar pulled up, I saw Oscar also had a tattoo of an AK-47 on his cheek. Oh, shit, I thought.
What kind of plans do they have for Gilda?
I began to feel protective, but I had no evidence to presume their intentions weren’t good.
“I put more faith in animals than people,” Oscar said.
He had a soft expression, kind of world weary. He had been in prison. He just wanted to live in peace with his wife, kids, and animals.
When they got out of the car, Gilda put her paws on Ana’s shoulders and went in for a hug.
Ana’s long blue fingernails caressed Gilda’s fur.
An hour after they left, Ana sent me photos of Gilda relaxing on green grass with their sons and two other dogs.
Gilda was chomping on a barrita de pan between her paws.
A dog’s life.
YOUR TURN: Where does FORGIVENESS take you? Is an awakening necessary for Forgiveness? Can regret be a lesson? When do anger and disappointment transform into compassion? Or don’t they? Is Forgiveness a muscle that becomes more agile with practice?
I went long on this one even after cutting out a ton. The Gilda story needed to be written.
Share your FORGIVENESS story in 200 - 300 words (the length of my Kermit story more or less).
POST IT IN THE COMMENTS SECTION.
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My brother and I didn’t forgive our stepdad when he left my mum for the second time. We could finally say it – David was a nobhead, and had always been one. My grandma, who disapproved of swearing, called him ‘a bastard’.
This new perspective allowed me to forgive myself for an incident that still had the power to twist my stomach with dread. It went from being one of the worst things I’d ever done to being a non-event.
When I was thirteen, I lost David’s tennis racket. He’d let me borrow it even though he’d gotten it for his Bar Mitzvah. It was slightly embarrassing, using a chunky racket with weird flannel stuck to the edges, but at least nobody would want to steal it. So where the hell was it? We never found out.
On the last day of term, I couldn’t find it in the school’s huge racket cupboard, so I assumed it was at home – it wasn’t. Mum saw right through my breezy ‘Oh, it’s around here somewhere’ and went ballistic. She told me to go back to school, even though it was closed. I called my grandma in tears and she got two buses to help me look. The school caretaker helped too, but it wasn’t anywhere.
For days, Mum and David barely spoke to me. I woke up every morning with a horrible feeling in my gut that haunted me whenever I thought about the incident, even years later – until the nobhead epiphany. When David left, I not only forgave my thirteen-year-old self for losing his beloved tennis racket, but the memory made me smile an evil smile.
I had taken responsibility for my mother after my father-s death. Shortly after settling in with me in Baltimore where I was working, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her answer to what she wished to do about it was “cut it off”. She seemed to be healing nicely when after a routine visit the Dr. discovered that the cancer had metastasized, and the prognosis was not good. It was at this point that I let the “headhunters “who had been recruiting me for a position in Philadelphia know that I would consider it. In January of 1994 we arrived during an ice storm.
I arranged for a caretaker to spend the days with my mother while I was at work. We bravely accepted the circumstances, and I was happy to have this time with her and bring some closure to our tumultuous relationship.
One day the care person was alarmed by my mother’s condition and said we should call an ambulance. We went to the emergency room where they treated her for dehydration. I was ready for us to go home and arrange for nursing care. However, the Dr. insisted she would be better off in the hospital as they could monitor her during the night.
The hospital was full and the only bed free was on the AIDS ward. The room had not been cleaned. Shortly after they put things right. I was so uneasy about her being there. She in her “mother knows best” mode insisted I go home and get some rest.
Two hours later I received a call that she had died. I raced to the hospital finding a sheepish group of medical staff awaiting me. “How could this have happened? Three hours ago she was resting.” My mother’s body was covered up to the neck and her pale face looked grotesque as they had hastily put her teeth in crooked. I pulled the sheet down and found her skin had been flayed from when they tried to resuscitate her.
It was at that moment I felt I could never forgive myself for yielding to authority, that of the medical staff and my mother. To this day I have a recurring dream in which I beg for forgiveness. There was a more humane and dignified death that I had envisioned for my mother.