A Woman’s Best Friend

Put simply, I hated my Mom’s dog.  Around the time my sisters and I were sent to Maryville, my Mother got a dog, a purebred collie with papers…the dog had papers. We had papers too, we were a ward of the Catholic Church, but that dog was apparently canine royalty or something, which made my sisters and me the peasants. We were given away and she kept the dog.  I guess the ironic part is that dogs often play a big part in a child’s life; they are a friend, a companion, a confidant, and a protector. In my world, however, our dog was none of those things, he was my competitor.  At Maryville we could go home every other month, except in the summer, for a weekend… we could leave on Friday and had to return Sunday.  On Friday after school we would pack a bag for the weekend and anxiously wait to be picked up. Often my Mother did not show up to pick us up till very late on Friday clipping our already short time at home. I always yearned to go home, but I never seemed to find what I was looking for once I was there.

One weekend we came home only to learn my Mother had bought the dog, I guess she was lonely and the dog provided her with warmth and companionship…I felt the irony of her being lonely at that moment, but it would be years until I could come to grips with just how infuriating and truly insane the whole situation was. It amused her that the dog was jealous of us kids….he was used to getting all the attention, and he was not happy to share her with us. When I wanted to get close to my Mom the dog would growl and the growling made my Mom laugh, she thought it was all so cute, it still makes me sick to my stomach when I think about it.  After a while, I came to understand that in life, if I wanted love and affection from my Mother, I would have to get in line behind her boyfriends and now her dog.

I never fully accepted, until I was much older, the idea that my Mother wanted little or nothing to do with me and my sisters. She had married young and always felt marriage and children had cheated her of her youth. She was born beautiful and charming and rather than appreciating those assets, they were a curse to her… they deformed her. 

Weekends at home were often boring and non-eventful …I did like watching TV all night and getting to eat whenever and whatever I wanted, but little else was satisfying.  As you may guess, I did not play with the dog.  Most parents feel bad when their children are sad and in pain but my Mother did not let such feelings burden her.  Often on Sundays when my sisters and I were returning to Maryville, I would sit in the car and silently cry; tears would stream down my face but my Mother never acknowledged the pain and sadness I felt, but when the dog whimpered, she comforted him.