I recently came home from a quick trip to Montana with my younger son. My teenager greeted me by briefly emerging from the rat's nest of his room, pointing at his headphones when I said "hi," and disappearing again. My husband was cleaning the kitchen while finishing dinner, which would have been an award-winning welcome — were it not for the dog.
You know those cute videos of dogs being reunited with service members who have been deployed? That's how my poodle, Maggie, reacts after I've been in the bathroom for five minutes. After my four nights in Montana, she greeted me as if I'd been vacationing on the moon and she had been solemnly told I'd drifted away into space and would never return.
I was completely chill about it, of course. I scooped Maggie up and ran around the house vigorously scratching her ears and shouting, "WHO IS MY SWEET LITTLE BABY POODLEY-OODLEY?!" Just as any reasonable dog-lover would.
She doesn't care about the stupid things I said in high school. She also forgives me for killing every single houseplant my husband has ever given me.
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I like to joke that half my soul is a poodle. I've had three, spanning my life. My mom brought home tiny, nervous Tyson (ironically named for the heavyweight boxing champ) when I was 5. He was my constant companion, the keeper of all my childhood secrets. He died shortly before I graduated from high school, and I figured I'd wait until after college to find a new dog.
But, during spring break of freshman year, I met Lenny in a pet store and couldn't bear to leave him there. I carted him along through four years of school; my first years of marriage to my husband, Tim; a half-dozen apartments and houses; and the addition of our two children, who doted on Lenny in his old-man years. My now-teenager's first word was "pup-pup" — his first long sentence, "That's my dog Lenny on the couch over there."
When Lenny died in 2017, I said again that I wanted to wait to get another dog. But a few weeks later, my mom stumbled across an online post from a woman looking to rehome an 8-month-old red poodle. Within 24 hours, Tim and I were driving across Washington to pick up Maggie.
One of the first times we left her home alone, she dragged my shoes, socks, pants and T-shirt to the couch and fell asleep on them.
"I think she likes you," Tim said.
I joke that half my soul is a poodle, but really, my dog keeps me believing in the soul.
Maggie accepts all my emotions, even "angry because I know I'm wrong and don't want to admit it" and "worrying about something that didn't happen but maybe could have." She doesn't care about the stupid things I said in high school. She also forgives me for killing every single houseplant my husband has ever given me. Even when I'm obnoxious or arrogant or mean, she thinks I'm awesome.
She doesn't love me in spite of all my faults — but just as I am, as the old saying goes.
Humans aspire to this kind of love, but we're ultimately pretty bad at it, clinging as we do to our long lists of secret conditions and extensive record of wrongs, real or imagined. Maggie's love is unfiltered, unimpressed by the trappings of the world, at times so over-the-top it's completely absurd. Her love asks for nothing (except ear scratches and cheese and a pair of smelly socks to drag around the house).
My younger son reported that Maggie's greeting was the best part of his day when we got home from Montana: "She ran up to me like, 'Yay! You exist!'"
Over the years, I've let go of understanding God as a being who enjoys smiting and condemning, or who doesn't want to do it but just has to, or who occasionally doesn't condemn but would really like to. While my faith is far from perfect, and often far from sturdy, I hang on to a persistent belief in a God who loves me (and everyone else) just because we exist. I can't prove it. I can't explain it.
Thanks to a quirky, overly enthusiastic, 17-pound ball of fur, I know that kind of love is possible. ♦
Tara Roberts is a writer and educator who lives in Moscow with her husband, sons and Maggie. Her novel Wild and Distant Seas is forthcoming from Norton in 2024. Follow her on Twitter @tarabethidaho.
