Hippopotamus: A Love Story

I sat on the cold, linoleum floor, crying, surrounded by the beings I love most in this world.

Standing in front of me, Clark Kent. My love, my beacon. The man I don't deserve who reminds me that I do most certainly deserve him. The lankiest nerd in the West.

Next to me, Penelope. Small Dog. My princess. A brindle bundle of joy.

And laying in front of me, my Hippopotamus. The fluppiest dog in the world. The face that forgave a thousand and thirty sins. The paws that figured out how to work the step trash can. The grin that ate an entire goddamned pineapple.

He was laying in front of me, on a plaid fleece blanket, on the floor of a vet's office on a Sunday night, because he couldn't stand. In less than 24 hours, he went from daily, dorky walks to losing motor control in his legs. His head always turned to the right. Clark Kent had to carry his full, furry, 60-pounds down 2 flights of stairs to take him outside to pee. Which he wouldn't. Or maybe even couldn't.

My puppy was broken. And my heart was in a nonstop spiral of breaking, pieces flying off as if a centrifuge were disintegrating before my eyes.

We'd made the decision to put Hippo to sleep. And goddammit, I didn't want to because I looked into his eyes and I saw HIPPO. And I know he saw me. And he didn't understand why his body didn't work and neither did we and he was only nine-and-a-half years old and he -- this big, dorky dog laying in front of me, panting, and wondering what was going on -- wasn't old enough for this to be happening.

Shit. I wasn't old enough for any of this to be happening.

And Clark Kent, the man who never breaks, broke.

He knelt down and wept over a dog that had become his dog. He was The Man and Hippo loved The Man very much. And it was more than obvious that The Man had fallen in love with Hippo as well. He'd fallen in love with the dog who had explosive diarrhea all over his crate. He'd fallen in love with the dog who -- instead of peeing -- just liked to stand outside, wind blowing through his fur and ears, while it was cold as bloody fuck. He'd fallen in love with the dog who's butt broke sometimes which meant ooey-gooey smears of poop felt through the gossamer protection of a doggie bag.

And Miss Penelope. Well, she just sat right by Hippo's side in silent declaration: THIS IS MY POTAMUS.

As he lay curled on his side, she nestled herself in the crescent of his belly, between his front and hind legs. MY POTAMUS.

And there was no way that anyone was leaving this room a winner.

I felt like the biggest loser. I was killing my dog and this wasn't fucking fair and I had nothing good to say to or about anyone or anything and I felt mean and angry and sad and if it were possible for a single, 60-pound black dog to blot out the entire sun -- that was exactly what was happening.

Let me tell you -- when the vet walks into a room where you're lying on the floor with your about-to-be-gone dog on a red-and-black plaid blanket that you have to figure several dogs before yours have also laid upon as a vet walked into the room -- you are not ready.

You are not ready to hear her ask if you are ready.

You are not ready to let go.

You are not ready to look at the man you love and ask for his love -- enough love to get you through however many days you're going to have to get through.

You are not ready for Small Dog to growl at the vet.

You are not ready to look into a dog named Hippopotamus' eyes and ask for him to forgive you.

You are not ready for the thought to dance across your brain that you'd gladly trade the 18-year-old asshole cat for one more year with Mr. Potamus.

You're not ready to be the grown-up in the room. This room, or any room.

You're not ready to lose the first dog you ever had. The dog who turned you into less of an asshole because it depended on you for everything. The dog who looked at you with chocolate truffle-colored eyes and reminded you that when everything was shit, he had a really good face. Oh, my god. He has such a good face!

And you are not ready to stop wondering if you're killing your dog.

KILLING YOUR DOG.

And you can't stop thinking that if you wait ONE MORE DAY, he'll get up and walk. His body will have sorted things out and it wasn't a ruptured disc and a stroke and a whatever else and it was just a BLIP.

But the vets asks: Are we ready?

And you look at the man you love. Through tears, he gives a minute nod – at you, not the vet.

And you look at Small Dog. She gets up and moves to sit by Hippo's head.

The only sound in the room is your heart breaking -- which sounds like every organ in your body crying.

You nod.

And you feel your Hippopotamus slip away. His tongue -- which he never could quite manage to keep in his mouth -- peeks out in a final blep as if to say, "It’s still me, Lady"

At the very moment you feel your Hippopotamus leave the room, Small Dog leaves his side, hops up on the wooden bench and sits right next to Hippo's shapeless harness.

And the only feeling in the room is that you're never going to win again. At anything. Anytime.

Because the one thing you thought you'd won is the Dog Lottery. On the day before Thanksgiving in 2007, you decided to go to an animal shelter in Las Vegas, Nevada because you just might get a dog to add to your family of two cats and one human who couldn't make relationships with other humans work.

While driving, "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" came on the radio (as it does). And you almost left the shelter that evening without a dog until you saw this explosion of black fur nibbling kibble, all quiet in a kennel by himself.

So you asked to see him.

And he walked right over and sat in your lap and you're like -- motherfucker. I'm getting a dog.

And then the dog gets up out of your lap, puppy-waddles around for a few circles, and then sits right in a puddle of water. Just like a hippopotamus.

So you got a Hippopotamus for (early) Christmas.

He was the only dog in the history of dogs to have Prince's "Sexy Motherfucker" on loop when we walked home after his grooming appointments. And now I was losing the Dog Lottery and I was going to have to explain to Small Dog where her Hippo had gone.

But Small Dog was ready to leave. She knew her Hippo wasn't there anymore. Sadly, so did we.

We weren’t ready to leave, but we did.

And we were not ready to go home and hear what the house sounded like with only one dog because it is a lonely feeling to take one dog for a walk when a mere 36 hours ago, you were walking two.

And we weren’t ready for the heartbreak that came with seeing Small Dog sleeping on the sofa, facing the front door, as if her Potamus would walk back through it after having gone on an especially long walk.

And I know this is a story filled with a shit ton of Ands and Buts because when you're trying to navigate your way through loss, the Ands and Buts are how you connect the hours of the day.

And when life comes crashing down and demands that you be a grown-ass adult, telling you what a loser you are for doing what you’ve just done, you spend a lot of time wondering if you're ever going to fucking win again.

But I would win again, and a dog named Hippopotamus would be a key culprit because he’d help me realize what I couldn’t see while he was still here:

That I was living the most significant love story of my life.

That somehow, I'd brought my life back from the destructive despair of losing the person I loved seven years ago and nearly offing myself to landing hopeful in a new city with a new career.

That two dogs and two cats had been there for me when I wasn't strong enough to let people inside my heart.

That I'd become a person who was worthy of love.

That I'd put myself in a place where I could fall in love again and accept love -- which meant that when I found the person I would come to love, I would fight for that love instead of doing what I do best when shit gets hard: walk away.

And that on that day, on the floor of a vet’s office in Skokie, Illinois, I was surrounded by the beings that I loved most in this world.

One man called Clark Kent.

One Small Dog.

And one Hippopotamus.

Which stands as, to-date, one of the single biggest wins of my life.