It's funny how things pop up just when you need to hear them. As I read this story, it was almost as if I had written it.
Nobody wanted Little bit. The Chihuahua with the tiny black body and oversized ears had been my widowed mother;s constant companion for the past 15 years. But she was one of the few possessions Mother forgot to list in her who-gets-what-upon-my-death notebook. My brother Randy got the fishing boat. My sister Mandy got the Christmas China. I got the antique dining room table.
But nobody wanted Little bit. "I can't take her." Rusty said. "My dogs would eat her for an appetizer." He was right. Little bit would never survive in a family that owned a German shepherd and a doberman pincer. "I can't take her," Mandy said. "Nobody's home at my house during the day. She'd be too lonely." My siblings looked at me. "I don't want her." I said.
The words were scarcely out of my mouth before pictures of my mother flashed through my mind, She was standing at the stove frying chicken, with Little bit waiting patiently at her feet for the first bite. She was sitting in her recliner, watching Wheel of Fortune on TV, with Little bit snuggled on her lap. And the last pictures of Mother curled up in a hospital ed, cancer consuming her body.
Hand me my notebook," she'd say. "I need to write somethings down." Mother listed all the items of value in her house and to whom they should be given. She left out nothing, from screwdrivers to shrimp forks. Except for little bit. It wasn't as though she could have forgotten about her. We had smuggled the six-pound dog into her room several times. The reunions were always joyful and tear-filled. So why was mother reluctant to say who would inherit her best friend once she was gone? Perhaps because my mother already knew where little bit would end up.
By default, little bit came to live at my house. And everything I dreaded cam to pass. She jumped on the furniture, she tormented the cats, she yelped all night long. She behaved like a spoiled princess. "I don't know how much more of this i can take," I told a friend after two weeks. " I'm going to try to find her someplace else to live," But finding a new home for little bit was easier said than done. When inquirers called in response to the ad i had placed on the newspaper, I was honest about her shortcomings- perhaps too honest. An elderly dog that jumped on furniture, tormented cats, and yelped all night long was hard to sell. Nobody wanted little bit.
Late one afternoon, in my despair, i threw myself into my recliner and began to sob. Not only had I lost my mother, i was stuck with her little dog. The more i thought about the injustice of it all, the harder i cried. Until something plopped into my lap. A six-pound something with brown eyes that locked into mine. I scratched the top of little bits hear. And then she began to cry. Not tears, of course, but the most pitiful whimpering I had ever heard.
That's when it him me. little bit hadn't been behaving like a princess. She's been behaving like someone eaten up with grief. Someone who'd had the person she loved more than anyone snatched away from her. just like me.
"You miss mother don't you, girl?" I scratched her hear. "So do I. But you know what? We'll make it through this thing together You and me." I reached for the remote control . "How about we turn on wheel of fortune and see if that makes us feel better?" But little bit didn't answer. She was snuggled in my lap snoring.
