Little Buttons
e parked our car, and were on our way to the movies when we saw it. The
puppy was pitch black and about a month old. It was sitting by the bushes, alone,
crying.
"Oh, look," my wife said, stopping.
"We're going to be late," I said, grabbing her arm.
"Someone left it here."
"Yes, and the movie is starting," I replied, trying to gently guide her away.
"But it's only a puppy!" she objected, breaking free of my grip. She went over, bent down, and petted it. "Oh, poor puppy," she said soothingly.
It stopped crying, got excited, danced around, wagged it's tale, and then urinated. It was a male.
"Honey, leave it there, please," I said, looking at my watch. It was 8:05 and the Clint Eastwood movie started at 8:00.
"Are you all alone, you cute little button nose?" she asked the puppy, ignoring me.
"Honey, don't pick it up. You don't know where it's been, or what diseases it has. You're pregnant, for goodness sake!"
She picked up the little button nose anyway, and it licked her face. Then it trained it's sad little puppy eyes on her. From then on, my words were like a hiccup in a hurricane.
"I'll bet it's hungry," she said, as its conniving little tongue licked her face again.
For the rest of that night, I sat at my kitchen table and watched a movie about love at first sight. In this movie, an expectant mother finds an abandoned puppy, whom she names 'Buttons'. She brings Buttons home, feeds it, and adopts it over the objections of her cold-hearted, practical husband. It was a very realistic movie. I did not like it nearly as much as the Clint Eastwood movie, which we saw the following weekend, but the Buttons movie was all that was playing that night for me.
I have to admit that Buttons was a sweet little puppy. He stayed by my wife the whole day, following her from room to room in our house. When she sewed, and my wife loved to make baby clothes, Buttons sat by her feet at the sewing machine. When she cooked, there was Buttons, sitting up and begging, getting fed little samples. When we ate supper, there was little Buttons, sitting on a chair at the kitchen table ....
"No! That's the limit! The dog does not sit with us while we eat!" I said, banging my palm down on the table. Buttons sat there, turning his head one way, then the other, staring at me, then my wife.
"Why not?" my wife asked, looking hurt. Buttons looked at her and wagged his tail.
"Because Buttons is a dog, not a person. A person sits at the table. A person does not have a name like Buttons. When we have a baby, the baby will sit with us at the table. Meanwhile, Button eats on the floor." Buttons looked at me and his tail hung limp and motionless.
"Can't he just sit here until the baby comes?" she pleaded. Buttons looked back at her, and I swear, he smiled. His tail started up again.
"NO!" I said. I went over to Buttons, picked him up off the chair, and put him by his little puppy bowl in the corner of the kitchen.
I sat back down at the head of the table, and resumed eating my meal.
"So, how was your day, honey?" I asked, looking down, cutting my steak.
Silence.
"Honey?" I said, looking up.
My wife was staring at Buttons, who was staring back at her. He made little puppy crying sounds from his corner of the kitchen. Almost on cue, they both stared at me with the same lost expression.
Okay, so sometimes a dog can sit at a kitchen table - until the baby is born - and then he has to eat by himself on the floor, like a dog.
The next hurdle was paper training Buttons. He was a quick learner, and within two weeks, he was 'staying on the paper', and ready to start going for walks. Then something strange happened. Buttons was leaving a pile of mucous on the newspaper, along with his other excretions. When the mucous piles grew larger, my wife and I took him to the vet.
The vet ordered tests, but I sensed he knew what was wrong before he started. He explained that the people who abandoned Buttons probably didn't give him shots, and certain shots have to be administered at an early point in a dog's life.
The vet assured us, while we waited for his assistant to finish the tests, that if it was the disease he suspected, it was harmless to pregnant women. My wife and I sat in the vet's office, waiting. She gripped my hand so tight the blood drained from it.
The assistant entered and handed the vet the results - Buttons had distemper. He was passed the point where shots would help. It was hopeless.
My wife held Buttons and cried in the car on the way back. The two of them remained like that after we returned home. My wife, now seven months pregnant, held Buttons in her lap while she rocked in her new rocking chair. Buttons coughed and wheezed, while she soothed him and cried, helpless to do anything else.
Two days later, we put Buttons to sleep. It was the humane thing to do.
I was worried that Buttons was a harbinger of bad times to come. Was he sent as a warning sign about the birth of our first child? Would sickness and death be a boarder in our house? I did not speak of my fears to my wife. Instead, every night, I prayed. Helpless and scared, I prayed.
When our first child was born, we were blessed with a beautiful, healthy, baby girl. I had the extreme pleasure of watching my wife sit in that same rocking chair, holding our child to her breast, smiling and radiant, as the love flowed back and forth between them.
My wife, and Buttons, showed me the miracle that life truly is.
