Daily Archives: February 15, 2019

A Tucker Story by Rebecca Forster

When the phone rang at 4:44 my husband answered. I sat up in bed and waited. Whatever news was to come, it wouldn’t be good. Tucker, my son’s dog, had died.

Ten years ago at Christmas time, against my advice, he got his then girlfriend a dog. The lady in question was not a homebody like my son, and I didn’t think she would like the responsibility of a dog. Still, poor as he was, my son wanted to get her this gift. Somehow he hooked up with a man in an alley who handed him a dog. He in turn proudly handed the pup to his girlfriend.  

A few weeks later, the girl was gone and the dog was back. I advised my son to give him away. He couldn’t afford another mouth to feed. What if the dog got sick? What would the little thing do all day in a studio apartment while my son looked for work? Thankfully, my wise counsel fell on deaf ears, and Tucker became part of our family.

That dog grew from a terrified little mutt to a self-confident, joyful, loving pet. It took a year of patience and love for my son to convince Tucker that no one would beat him, no one would abandon him, and everyone would love him.

Tucker was polite. He waited patiently for everything – a walk, a treat, a cuddle –  and showed gratitude for small kindnesses in a million little ways. Never a crotch-sniffer he spent weeks attacking mine, befuddling us all with this new behavior. I was diagnosed with uterine cancer a few weeks later and once I was operated on, he never did it again. I think that was a Tucker miracle.

He slept at my feet while I wrote, was underfoot when I cooked, followed me everywhere until my son came into the room. Then it was clear that Tucker’s heart belonged to him. The love between this rescue dog and this young man was glorious, and gentle, and kind, and loving, and caring. They were friends. They had each other’s backs.

If you think about it, all of us who write are striving to tell a Tucker story. In his little life there was drama and character building, joy and pain, courage and excitement, goals to be met, laughter to be shared and tears to be shed. If we as authors could weave a story one tenth as full as this dog’s life, our books would never be forgotten. So tomorrow when I sit down to work, I will remind myself to write a Tucker story even though I might shed a few tears along the way.