Granny, who adored Ramon, would often stop in for a visit.
“You’re going to be just fine,” she opined, bringing in matzo ball soup on a tray and sitting on the bed as we chatted.
“This is good for colds, not backs,” I joked.
“Honey,” she laughed, “this is good for everything. Eat it before Katie does.”
Indeed, Queen Katie would be sprawled casually on top of me, regal on the green bedspread, eyeing that soup like a hawk. She was, of course, oblivious to anything out of the ordinary in terms of my mobility.
Truth be told, my dog liked me in bed—the more time in there the better. She would slap my arm with her paw when she was hungry. When she wanted to be combed out, she’d retrieve the brush from a straw basket I kept on the floor. It was as if she was saying, “Dad, c’mon, I need my ears done.” She liked them untangled and fluffy.
“Your girl looked like a drowned rat on the Esplanade,” Pearl pronounced one day when she and Katie came in from walking in heavy rain. “Dry her off,” she ordered, throwing me a bath towel.
“Yeah, Dad, get moving,” the “child” motioned, pushing her wet head into my stomach. Then, Granny would pull out the hair dryer and Katie would patiently stand on the bed until she was perfectly dry.
Some days after school, Ryan would burst into my bedroom to see Katie and me. He would throw himself on the bed, give us a hug, and show me what he’d been up to that day in school.
“Beat it, off, off,” exclaimed Ryan, as Katie tangled herself in the covers, snooping into his backpack for leftover snacks.
Having Katie and Ryan wrestling together completely distracted me from myself, which was the best medicine of all.
At nights, when John got home, Pearl would bring an entire dinner for everyone into my bedroom. “Let’s have a picnic,” she’d suggest. “Your bed is the table, so you’d better get ready for us.”
And promptly at seven, right after Pearl watched the evening news, there we were, Katie and Ryan positioned on the bed and John and Pearl sitting on chairs nearby, all of us digging into Granny’s chicken cutlets.
“Like the salad?” she asked, savoring the fresh vegetables that she had scooped up earlier at our nearby farmers’ market, “for half the price of the supermarket,” she noted proudly.
“Eat your tomatoes,” she told Ryan—who slipped more than one of them into Katie’s mouth when Pearl wasn’t looking.
“I saw that,” she snapped. “No dessert until you eat them.”
“But they’re gone!” Ryan protested.
“Now they’re back!” laughed John, plunking his own tomatoes on Ryan’s plate.
And then, at dessert time, Pearl brought out a homemade pear tart, as always, giving Katie her own slice on a plate. Ryan would carefully put a piece of the tart on the fork and hold it up for Katie as she delicately pulled the cake off without ever biting into the fork, getting every crumb.
Katie was now a mature girl of nearly eight, no less bouncy than before but definitely bossier, and quite definite about what she wanted and when.
For example, even when I was trapped in bed, she’d retrieve a sock and jump up on the bed and throw it at me, ready for tug-of-war. “You hit me in the face with it!” I objected one day. She just stared at me obstinately, determined to play.
You either complied or she would rip the sock to shreds on her own.
Having built on her TV-remote skills at Granny’s, she now liked grabbing the remote control away from me as well, pushing down on it to change channels until she hit one she liked.
In the winter, after she came in from a walk, she liked having her paws washed off with warm paper toweling, something I’d done since she was a puppy. She’d either trot into the bathroom and sit there, waiting, or grab a roll of towels from the bathroom and bring it to me, dropping it for me on the bed.
Talk about smart.
Katie’s antics, our family dinners, and Pearl’s caretaking made even the worst of days the best of times. And not coincidentally, my health was slowly improving.
Thanks to physical therapy, massage, and a great chiropractor, I was back to taking long walks, swimming, and even riding a bike.
“Hey, Glenn P!” shouted Ryan one brisk October day, outfitted in his yellow bike helmet, headed for a ride on the Esplanade. “My Dad and I are going out… want to come?”
Yes, I did! And from that point on, whenever I could, I was back on my bike tooling along the Hudson River, with Katie on a leash, trotting from behind. Ryan led the way, talking nonstop to “the child,” telling her to stop pulling on the leash, though she was more interested in snooping on the ground for crumbs. It was a fun time—and a great relief to be outside again.
One morning in March 1996, Katie was, as always, snuggled up against my chest, her long ears draped across my arm. Listening to her snore contentedly under my down comforter was such a consoling, peaceful way to begin the day.
In the midst of a happy dog dream, she’d woken me up with the swat of her tail against my stomach—her brown eyes sealed shut by those long blond eyelashes.
Held at bay by the canine snooze was, of course, the less enviable part of being a dog owner—the walk outside. Even on such an unseasonably warm day as this one, Katie, who no doubt heard the wind whistling outside, resisted the inevitable.
“C’mon, Blondie, let’s go,” I said, nudging her awake by giving her a kiss on the nose. She opened one eye and then closed it again.
“It’s too early,” she seemed to tell me, burrowing deeper under the sheets to escape. “I need some shut-eye!”
I insisted. Katie marshaled her energy and we were up and out along the Hudson River within five minutes, walking briskly.
It seemed that my disability days were finally coming to an end, though I still found myself wrestling with morning depression.
On that March day, the “down” feeling was palpable, like a heavy weight pressing on me.
Despite the many blessings in my life, I sometimes still only focused on what I didn’t have—namely a job. I had never really recovered from the loss of that newspaper position, while the physical problems I’d experienced had cut into my self-confidence and left me feeling defective and inadequate.
Much as I used to complain about the daily pressures of a full-time job, structure was golden for me, and I sorely missed saying good morning to colleagues, sharing jokes, having lunch dates, racing around to interviews, and sticking to a tight schedule.
Without all that, what was I now? What was my purpose?
“Snap out of it!” exclaimed Granny that morning at breakfast, using one of her favorite expressions, a line taken from the Cher movie Moonstruck, which she loved. “You’ve got your girl, me, John, and the kid, and things could be a lot worse.”
Pearl had some of the same no-nonsense qualities as the heroine of that film: Both were pragmatic and fiery, stoic and stubborn. No matter what she said, I found her presence put things right into perspective.
“Now pass the butter.”
By midafternoon, when I left for my weekly therapy appointment, the wind had dramatically died down, so I decided to ride my bike the three miles uptown, setting out with just one thing purposely left behind—a bike helmet. I hated wearing it because having my head enclosed felt claustrophobic.
The effectiveness of therapy, for me, was transitory, its benefit vanishing a few hours after I left the office. It was far less effective than Granny. Today was no exception.
After the appointment, now heading home on the bike, I remember feeling slightly lightheaded, as I was getting over a cold. I considered putting my bike into a taxi, but then dismissed the idea.
I knew the route home so well that I hardly paid any attention as I automatically rode south on Seventh Avenue, then west on Christopher Street toward the Hudson River, and made the final approach from city traffic to the bike path along the deserted river’s edge.
The pavement here was crumbling, with shards of broken gla
ss everywhere. Pedaling quickly and then making a sharp left turn, I had nearly escaped traffic and reached the bike path when I suddenly hit a deep crack in the cement.
Without any warning, I went flying over the handlebars, so quickly that I had no chance to break the fall with my hands. It was like being fired out of a cannon and catapulted through the air in a flash. I saw it all in slow motion, aware of my trajectory but helpless to stop it.
A second later, I landed on the cement with a crunch, flat on my face—my nose, lips, forehead, and sunglasses smashed into the cracked cement and broken glass.
There was total silence. I couldn’t move, and didn’t even try to. It was as if I’d accidentally walked into a wall of glass. In my peripheral vision, I could see my fallen bike in a heap nearby. My face felt numb and wet, and my knees were burning. I lay still.
Then someone appeared by my side. I saw just his feet.
“Dude! You okay?”
“Yeah,” I kind of groaned, “but I can’t move,” I told him, attempting to push myself up.
“Don’t do that… just don’t move.” He called 911 and stayed with me, putting his hand gently on my arm. Flat on my face, I never did see his face. But I felt his concern. And later, as the events of the day unfolded, I would understand that this man’s simple act of kindness was the beginning of the end of my depression.
Within a few minutes an ambulance from St. Vincent’s Hospital appeared, siren blaring. I remember EMS workers placing a brace over my neck—with the expectation that I might have broken it—then lifting me from the pavement and putting me onto the stretcher.
As I was being rolled into the ambulance, I pulled from my pocket my business card and asked the man who’d helped me if he would ride my bike home.
“I’ll take care of it, don’t you worry about it,” he told me. And off we went.
When we reached the hospital, all sense of time was suspended. Although the emergency room was bustling with doctors, nurses, and patients, I saw the scene around me as if the sound was turned off.
As it turned out, there was a deep gash across my forehead requiring eighteen stitches and another one under my nose that had ripped my lip apart. On top of that, my nose was broken, both knees were bleeding, there were contusions all over my face, and my left eye was black and swollen, nearly closed.
A nurse came by offering to telephone someone who could come to the hospital to support me. I gave her the office number of one of my all-time best friends, Michael, a brilliant twenty-nine-year-old lawyer who also happened to be blessed with a riotous sense of humor. He could see the irony in anything, and could always make me laugh. I really needed that now. Michael was a once-in-a-lifetime find, the kind of friend you hope for. He was close to my family; adored Katie, Granny, and Ryan; showed up at all our parties; and even helped me with legal matters.
When Michael got to the hospital, he had to wait for “visiting time” in the ER, which was the last ten minutes of every hour. At the appropriate time, a nurse led him back into the ER and he walked right past my bed.
“I would never have recognized you,” he later told me. “Your face was a bloody pulp. You looked like you’d been knocked out in a boxing match. And you were moaning, this slow steady groan of unabated pain.”
Up until then, I had remained pretty calm. But when an orderly wheeled me into the X-ray room, with Michael following, I pretty much lost it, all defenses down. Just at the moment they transferred me from the portable cot to the X-ray table, I began to cry and couldn’t stop.
I wasn’t just upset about my accident. It was as if all the emotions I’d felt about what had happened to my career and health were amplified and brought to the surface, bursting out of me in one convulsive, and embarrassing, sob.
My next thought was “Granny.”
Michael called her on the phone, explained the situation, and she raced into a taxi and was at the hospital in fifteen minutes.
“Glenn,” she quipped, pulling aside the curtain and walking into the cubicle. “I leave you alone for an hour and you wind up in a place like this!” That was Granny.
She calmly proceeded over to my bedside to get a better look, holding on her arm a large cloth canvas shopping bag, the one she used at the farmers’ market.
“Honestly,” Michael later said. “Granny was more composed than I was. I’d never seen anyone look the way you did, and I was pretty shaken up.”
But Pearl, outwardly calm, wasn’t so unaffected by what was happening. She was actually quite upset seeing me in this condition, but she never let it show.
“I brought something to cheer you up,” she said, rifling into her bag.
“Oh, Granny, I’m not up for any cookies right now.”
“I’ve got something much better than that,” she smiled. And there, popping out from under a pink towel was Katie! Pearl had smuggled her into the hospital, past the ER nurses, using the same technique I had used when sneaking Katie into the Daily News building years earlier.
“She never moved when I told her to stay quiet,” said Pearl proudly, lifting Katie up onto my hospital cot. “I guess those obedience lessons paid off.”
Never had I been as happy to see my dog as I was that day. She tried to lick my face, but that was impossible. So Granny held her steady, and she soon fell asleep next to me, hiding under the sheet. No doctor was the wiser.
Michael stood guard, remaining on the lookout for any ER doctors or nurses (who would certainly seek the immediate ouster of a canine intruder) while Pearl and I talked quietly. For the rest of my ER stay, Katie stayed under the sheet or hidden in the bag, evading eviction, as Granny talked into the bag, perhaps mistaken for someone with senile dementia!
Blessings were piling up. The first one was the man who discovered me on the ground. Then there was the rapid response of the ambulance, the care of the nurses, and now two of my closest friends were sitting by my side.
Next, a young plastic surgeon arrived offering a big smile. “We’re going to fix you up—and you’ll have no scars left behind,” he assured me, though I wasn’t prepared for what followed. After cleaning up my face and stitching up the cuts, the doctor explained that he was going to reset my nose without anesthesia.
“But why?” I asked, dreading any more pain.
“We can’t give anesthesia when we believe a patient may have sustained a concussion or a neck injury—so you’re going to have to bite the bullet and trust me. We’ll get through it quickly, I promise.”
As he manipulated my nose with his instruments, I heard a loud crack as he was resetting the bone. I was in agony, in the most physical pain I’d ever experienced. Adding to the drama was blood spraying all over the wall.
“When the doctor reset your nose, you let out the most intense shriek,” said Michael. “That kind of pain was just unfathomable to me.”
And then, to my amazement, an hour after my face was bandaged and my nose filled with packing, the plastic surgeon announced, “You can go home.”
“He can go where?” asked Michael, astonished by this.
“We can’t keep him in the hospital. He’s fine. But if his nose starts bleeding again during the night, call the ER.”
So at 9:00 p.m., six hours after it all began, I was released from the hospital, barely able to walk. But that’s exactly what I did, supported on each arm by Michael and Pearl. A second before the door closed behind us, Katie jumped out of her shopping bag and the last thing I remember is the shocked expression of the nurse. Too late now!
The taxi ride home to Battery Park City was a quiet one, each of us lost in our own thoughts. Michael and Pearl were incredible friends that night. In fact, they were much more than that: They were family.
And it wasn’t just that they showed up and stayed with me. Anyone could do that. They really cared—and I would never forget it.
That night, with my defenses down, I realized just how much I loved them, and how that feeling was so readily returned to me. A sense of thankfulness fi
lled me up. Finally, I understood something that I had read long ago—that a grateful heart can never be a depressed one. The two emotions are antithetical.
Holding onto both Pearl and Michael, I made my way slowly down the hall toward my apartment door.
Small acts of kindness continued. Michael helped pull off my bloody T-shirt without disturbing the bandages on my face. Pearl pulled back the covers and propped up some pillows. Katie jumped up on the bed and nestled next to me.
John, who had been at work and unable to come to the hospital, brought Ryan down the hallway. Both of them were anxious to see me.
“You look bad—like Monster Man,” exclaimed Ryan, intrigued as only a child could be by my swollen face. He was completely unfazed by it, happy to lie on the bed next to me, together with Katie.
“Pip,” as John sometimes called me, “you won’t be going out on dates anytime soon!” he laughed.
It was Oscar night, so Michael flipped on the TV, and we all watched Mira Sorvino win Best Supporting Actress for Mighty Aphrodite.
Lying in bed, surrounded by everyone, I never felt more at peace. I also knew that I was lucky. The entire day had been a lesson in gratitude. The depressed person of that morning was gone. Maybe human nature works that way: You don’t really know how fortunate you are until all that you take for granted is threatened.
That’s why the accident was a gift, leading to an epiphany that literally snapped me out of my ungrateful, depressed state of mind. It forced me to count my blessings—the people (and the dog) in my life.
On this night, I especially appreciated Katie’s upbeat love for all of us, reflected in her countless runs up and down the hall, herding us together.
I took in the happy bounce of her gait, her curious nose, her exuberant smile, and her tongue hanging out with pleasure.
Once again, even in the ER, she had helped pull me through a difficult time, consoling, entertaining, and immeasurably enhancing the quality of all our lives.
That night, just before I went to sleep, Granny brought in some apple juice with a straw and sat next to me without talking. She looked out the window at the river, stroking Katie’s head in a slow rhythm.
Katie Up and Down the Hall: The True Story of How One Dog Turned Five Neighbors Into a Family Page 13
