The dog’s gift.

Every time I look through these windows to the garden, watching the yellow & blue birds calmly sat down on those thin branches of the lemon tree, I remind that they would scream and go crazy if my little Boris was alive.

That dog used to make the hell out of their lives.

My father adopted Boris three days before that fulminant heart attack, one week before we had moved to this house. Boris still was a puppet and struggled to carry my dad’s 190-pounded body by the shirt’s collar to the bench, hoping that someone could still save him. Boris still didn’t know what a fulminant heart attack meant.

The day my dad died I cursed God. I was too young, my father wasn’t that old. Why the hell God had chosen that day? I cried and screamed so loud that the little dog got scared. He went away for about one week. I never discovered where the hell the dog went that day.

The previous owner of the house, Mr. Ferguson, went to my father’s funeral, he had told me that I should start taking care of my mom, of the house, and spent a lot of time telling how I should take care of the lemon tree… He said that I should water it — Not too much! — when the weather was too dry, but there was no need to trim its branches, the birds and the autumn used to do this sort of job.

He also had said something like that besides the tree, those birds took care of other things, that they were a kind of gods, not like the god of ours, but someone else’s gods… Like they were a divinity to other people, from other countries and little tribes in the middle of nowhere.

I didn’t pay attention. I had lost my father, at that time, I preferred to believe more in trees and lemons than believing in any god.

Some days after, I was sitting on the bench having a lemonade when Boris came back. He suddenly appeared running out of nowhere at the garden, He had a dead bird in his mouth and dropped it over my feet. He was shaking his tail with happiness and looking at me expecting for some congratulations. He would do this until the last day of his life.

No matter how hard I had tried to convince that dog that those birds were not a good gift to me, he would bring a bird. One per day. For 13 years. Even when I haven’t seen Boris — he used to hide somewhere in the neighborhood- I found birds at my doorstep.

For Boris a bird was a gift, for Mr. Ferguson it was some god, for me, it was a dead bird that proved my dog was alive and liked me. I keep this secret with me, buried together with thousands of birds Boris have brought.

Boris passed away last year, unfortunately now he knows what a fulminant heart attack means. When he died I didn’t curse God. 13 years is good life expectancy for a dog, but not a good age for a boy losing his father.

I loved my father and I loved that dog, but I am a little happy that the bird-at-door-thing has stopped. Today, looking at that lemon tree and the birds I feel that someone somewhere can still pray for his god without being suddenly interrupted because some anxious dog wanted to please his nonbeliever owner. I don’t know if, for his whole life, Boris tried to bring god back to me or killed lots of gods for me.

But, If one day someone tells me that it was my dog’s fault they have lost their faith I would say that I only believe in lemons.

Story and Illustrations by Eduardo Dami.