Following Atticus

by Tom Ryan

  Now, I suppose he was just doing his job, but I got the impression he needed to be reminded we weren’t just dealing with tumors and machines, we were dealing with heart-and-soul and feelings. We were dealing with a little dog’s life. We were dealing with my best friend.

  When he finally gave up, he had the most perplexed expression on his face.

  “Nothing, then?” I asked.

  He found it hard to believe. “No, nothing. Huh, that’s strange.”

  At that point I no longer wanted to hit him, I just wanted them all to let go of Atticus. And, of course, I was relieved that they didn’t find any tumors. I took it as a victory, but John told me that even though they hadn’t seen any tumors, Atticus still had hyperthyroidism. I asked him where I could bring him for the best care possible, and he suggested either Tufts Animal Hospital or Angell Animal Medical Center. I went with Angell, mostly because I liked the sound of it, and he gave me the name of a doctor there.

  No matter what it cost, I was determined that Atticus would get the best possible treatment. What I had forgotten in my zeal to take care of him was that after our winter I was nearly broke. But I wasn’t thinking about that. All I could think about at that moment was Geshe Gendun and Atticus sitting together. Einstein was right: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.”

  17

  “I’m Not Leaving Him Alone”

  When Atticus was very young, I was still sleeping on my couch. He was so tiny, and I didn’t want to crush him if I rolled over in my sleep, so I placed him above my head on the pillow. This way I knew he was safe, but I would also be able to tell if he had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. His stirring would wake me up, and I’d rush him to the puppy pads on the kitchen floor. As he got a bit older and a bit more disciplined when he had to go the bathroom, if he stirred in the middle of the night, I’d run him down the two flights of stairs to the little patch of lawn across the street.

  We’d slept together ever since. It wasn’t long before I bought a real bed, and typically when we went to sleep, he’d be near me, but not always touching. By morning I’d awaken to find him snug up against me. But when he was going blind and was sick, he couldn’t get close enough. He’d fold his back right up against my chest. He was afraid and needed reassurance.

  On the day of our first visit with Susan Hayward, the veterinary ophthalmologist, I woke up to Atticus sitting above me with a horrifically sad face. I was still groggy, but there was something terribly wrong with him. I sat up and saw that his right eye was completely covered with a grotesque yellowish paste. It wasn’t the “little sleepies” all dogs get from time to time. His eye was glued shut.

  He gave me a look that said, Please help me, Tom.

  I ran a washcloth under steaming-hot water and pressed it over his eye. A minute later I took it off and saw that the paste was still thick. I needed to try something else. I rewet the washcloth and gently scrubbed away the discharge. It took several minutes of cleaning before I could get his eyelid pried open.

  That afternoon we met Susan Hayward for the first time. She was a busy, bookish woman with a bit of distance to her. She was nice enough, and she knew her stuff, but it was clear she didn’t want us to get too close. Not physically, just in a human, warmhearted way.

  While she examined Atticus, I told her a bit about our winter to give her his background, but she didn’t seem to hear a word I was saying. She was proficient in the way she looked at Atticus’s eyes and moved around the room.

  Both eyes were bad and needed surgery, she said, but the right eye was worse. The cataract was fully mature, and, worse yet, it was infected. She called it uveitis. That’s where the discharge came from. She wasn’t sure if it was too late to save the right eye, and she was concerned about retinal detachment. She couldn’t operate on it as it was and prescribed medication for me to apply in the hope that it would bring the swelling down. But there was a chance it wouldn’t and we’d lose the eye.

  She did an ultrasound on the right eye. The retina wasn’t detached, but if it did detach, there would be no hope of saving the eye.

  “How much can Atticus see right now?” I asked her.

  She had me look at the fluorescent light on the ceiling with my eyes closed. I saw the glow and some shadows, but little else.

  “That’s what he sees with the right eye. The left eye is better, but not much,” she said.

  “How did it come on so quickly?” I asked. “Was it because of the snow and the hiking?”

  Like John Grillo, she told me it had nothing to do with the snow. She explained that it just happens in some dogs, and although it may seem sudden, Atticus had most certainly been going blind for quite some time.

  I told her we’d do the surgery but that I needed to find some money first. She said good-bye and scurried out of the room, leaving us with her vet tech, who explained what I needed to know. “He’ll have to be at the hospital for three days and two nights. You can bring him in the night before the surgery, and he can go home the day after the surgery.”

  She asked me if I had any questions.

  “Yeah, where will I be sleeping?”

  The young woman laughed, then caught herself a few seconds later when she realized I wasn’t joking.

  “I’m not leaving him alone. We’re never away from each other, and he needs me now more than ever.”

  “But we don’t allow people to stay overnight,” she said.

  “I’m sure you can make an exception,” I said with a smile. “I’m sure we all want what’s best for Atticus.”

  She tried to explain the policies of the hospital, but I interrupted her.

  “I’m not leaving him alone overnight.”

  After an awkward moment, she excused herself. Several minutes passed, and Dr. Hayward breezed back into the room and told me I could bring him in the day of the surgery, take him home that night, and bring him back first thing the next morning for a checkup.

  Atticus and I were smack dab in the middle of a shit storm. We needed to rely on our strengths to survive it, and our greatest strength was that we had each other. I was not about to give up our only advantage. Luckily, Dr. Hayward seemed to understand that.

  Walking out to the car, I thought better of Susan Hayward because of it.

  Atticus had always loved riding in the car, but not in the head-out-the-window, tongue-flapping-in-the-wind, silly-looking way of some dogs. He was statelier than that. On occasion he’d stick his head out the passenger-side window, but typically he’d sit up and look out through the windshield, even though he was barely tall enough to reach it. But on the ride home from the ophthalmologist, he didn’t sit up. He lay down, his head hung over the edge of the seat. It was a look of defeat and despondency.

  I reached across and petted him softly. As I felt his little body and his soft hair under my hand, I couldn’t get something that Susan Hayward had said out of my head. It was the part about how Atticus had most certainly been going blind for quite some time. The blindness hadn’t come on suddenly.

  Then how did he do it? How had he led me over those mountains?

  I couldn’t fathom how he did it, or why he did it, other than that he knew it was important to me and since day one he always saw it as his job to lead me and look out for me.

  But still, he didn’t just climb a mountain. He climbed eighty-one of them, in winter, through a blizzard, high winds, heavy snow, ice, subzero temperatures, and in darkness. Never once did he show a sign of hesitation or discomfort. Always, always, he was looking out for me. He’d stop and watch to make sure I was okay on the trail.

  I thought about the Bonds, thought about the Northern Pressies, thought about Washington, Monroe, Eisenhower, and Pierce in one day. I thought about Franconia Ridge. How did he do it?

  I had to pull the car over to the side of the road, because it wasn’t just Atticus who
couldn’t see. I was suddenly blind myself, tears flooding my eyes, rolling down my cheeks. I picked Atticus up and hugged him and whispered, “Thank you, thank you . . . thank you, Atticus.”

  18

  The Friends of Atticus

  What is the worth of a true friend? Are we willing to walk hundreds of miles and climb thousands of feet over rocky and dangerous mountains in winter for a friend who touched our life through her living and her dying? Are we willing to lead someone we love over that same distance, in that same season, while going blind? I know the answer to those questions, because I’ve both given and received.

  And what is the worth of a couple of eyes? The painter, the photographer, the reader—they’d all argue that vision is priceless. There are some, though, who seem to go through life seeing nothing.

  And what of a dog’s eyes? I knew of many dogs who’d had cataracts whose owners thought four thousand dollars was too much to pay for surgery, especially since surgery, while usually successful, was not guaranteed to work. I knew some who’d paid for it and weren’t happy with the results. I’d read stories about how dogs learn to live without their sight, how they adapt with their keen sense of smell, which some believe is more important than their eyesight. To Atticus, though, his eyes seemed more important than anything else. There was no question that he needed the surgery.

  But what if the uveitis worsened and surgery wasn’t an option and he lost that right eye? What if his left eye had the same trouble? And what if the ointment worked and the uveitis lessened and he was able to have the surgery but it didn’t work?

  I was sure he’d still climb the mountains, he’d find a way to follow the scent and feel the breeze on his face up high. But those eyes of his, they were different from any other dog’s I’d ever heard of. He so loved sitting on a mountaintop and gazing outward. Surely no creature had ever made better use of a gift from God than Atticus had with his vision. And my dearest friend, the Little Buddha, was in danger of losing that gift.

  I religiously applied the medicine Susan Hayward had prescribed and prayed that his right eye would get better enough to allow the surgery. But my patience was tried. It was like waiting for the snow to stop, waiting to be able to get back out to the mountains. There was nothing we could do, nothing except sit and wait and pray.

  While we were waiting, I worried about money. How would I afford the surgery? Most of my money was gone, put into raising funds for the fight against cancer. My business was sagging because I had neglected it during our quest, and keeping the Undertoad afloat had been hard on my credit.

  I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.

  I’d often worried about Atticus’s medical bills as we walked the two blocks down to the post office, aware that there was inevitably yet another past-due notice in my mailbox for something, reminding me how broke I was. And yet we kept going to the mailbox every day; it was part of our ritual. It was good for business and good for Atticus. He had always enjoyed the walk because he met so many friends along the way.

  Such a stroll should have taken no more than ten minutes in each direction. But the walk there and back would usually take at least an hour. People pulled over and wanted to talk; a city employee would tip me off to something happening at city hall; a businessman would have something to say about what was wrong with the city; I’d get comments, both pro and con, about the latest issue of the Undertoad. The street was my office. It’s where I got much of my work done.

  With Atticus no longer able to see, each day I led him along those two blocks, just as he had always led me. He’d sit outside on the steps waiting while I went in and got the mail, and people would walk by and greet him, people who knew him, people he knew. He was one of them. He was a Newburyporter.

  There was a time when Atticus had been allowed to go inside the post office, but he paid the price for being my dog. He was banned simply because he belonged to the editor of the Undertoad. It was one of those things John Battis had told me about Newburyport. “They” couldn’t get at me: I didn’t have kids or a wife, I worked for myself, so “they” attacked where they could: slashed tires, disgusting rumors, anonymous death threats. Most silly of all, since “they” weren’t having much success with any of that, “they” saw to it that Atticus was not allowed in certain places anymore.

  I once received a phone call from a woman telling me she was from the postmaster general’s office. My caller ID showed the call came from Virginia.

  “Mr. Ryan, we can have you arrested if your dog goes into the post office anymore.”

  “Why?”

  “Dogs aren’t allowed in any U.S. post offices unless they are guide dogs.”

  “Then why do they give him dog biscuits when he goes inside?”

  She tripped for a moment, then found her officious manner again. “Rules are rules, Mr. Ryan. Let this be a warning to you.”

  I asked her how someone at her office so far away was handling a complaint about a little post office in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

  “We’ve had complaints.”

  “Who complained?”

  “I’m not at liberty to tell.”

  “They” complained.

  It was okay, it was part of the game played in Newburyport. I wrote what I wanted, and “they” came after me in ridiculous ways. It was par for the course. It was the price of admission.

  Atticus didn’t understand why he could no longer go in, and he definitely didn’t understand the sign that appeared on the front door at city hall saying, YOUR DOG MAY BE ASKED TO LEAVE (translation: your dog will be asked to leave if his name is Atticus M. Finch), when yet another new mayor was elected.

  But whenever he sat outside, he sat patiently, and people were happy to see him waiting for me without his leash on.

  “Good morning, Atticus.”

  “It’s a fine day, Atticus.”

  “How are you today, Atticus?”

  When he went blind, though, the tone was different. It’s like when you know that someone has cancer. You can’t help but say, “How are you feeling?” and have it come out sounding a little different from the way it used to. It was no longer a cursory greeting. People really did want to know how he was feeling, and they spoke as if they expected him to understand what they were asking. They wanted him to know they cared.

  One day while Atticus sat outside with his cloudy eyes, I came out with a couple envelopes, sat on the steps next to him, and opened them. One was addressed to Atticus. It was a handmade card. Inside, in a small child’s writing, it said, “Dear Atticus, My mommy and daddy told me you weren’t feeling well and you needed to go to the doctors so I’m sending money from my piggy bank.”

  It was from a four-year-old girl who had overheard her parents talking about Atticus, left the room, and come back with her bank saying she wanted to help. She’d taped a combination of coins inside the card. Sixty-eight cents total.

  In the other envelope was a five-dollar bill from an elderly woman, a longtime subscriber to the ’Toad. “As you know, Tom, I’m on a fixed income. I just wanted to help with Atti’s medical bills. If I can afford it, I’ll send more later.”

  The next day an envelope came with a hundred-dollar bill. It was anonymous but came with a typed quotation from It’s a Wonderful Life. The typist had changed it a bit, “Atticus, remember, no man (or dog) is a failure who has friends. Thanks for the wings, A friend. P.S.: You gave us all wings when you took us along on your adventure this winter.”

  The letters came out of nowhere. If I wasn’t on the verge of tears because of what Atticus was going through, I was close to crying because of those incredible gestures. And they were only the beginning.

  In the ensuing days, more envelopes came, and they didn’t stop coming. They came from all over New England, and they came from California, Oregon, Colorado, Georgia, Florida, and New York. They came from so many places I lost count. But most, of
course, came from Newburyport.

  Some were anonymous donations of cash. Others were checks. Most were small. Nearly every one of them included a note written to Atticus. All the notes wished him well, and some thanked him for touching their lives. One person wrote, “Thanks for restoring my faith that anything is possible. What you did in the mountains will never be forgotten.”

  The owners of a farmstand put up a milk bottle with Atticus’s photo on it near their cash register, and over the next several weeks they had to empty the nickels, dimes, quarters, and bills often. That little milk bottle brought in hundreds of dollars toward Atticus’s medical expenses.

  Tom McFadden, my chiropractor, held a fund-raiser and told people that a portion of what they paid for every adjustment he did that day would go to Atticus. Linda, who owned Abe’s Bagels, another place where Atticus was banned (because “they” had turned her in to the health inspector), sent along a sizable check. So did Pam at Pawsitively Best Friends, where Atticus had gotten his bodysuit. A local business sent a check for thirteen hundred dollars. A woman we didn’t know from Cambridge, who had followed our blog and was moved by Atticus, sent two thousand dollars.

  Paul Abruzzi at Jabberwocky launched the Friends of Atticus, along with Terry Berns, who was married to Tom Jones. A bank account was set up.

  Kids sent in their allowances. Cancer survivors sent checks with notes of thanks. We received donations from members of the hiking community, including from Kevin, Judy, and Emma, whom we’d met on Waumbek.

  In only three weeks, nine thousand dollars came in!

  Money appeared indirectly as well. The Undertoad, which had been struggling due to my neglect, was filled with ads. Businesses paid to advertise because they wanted me to have money to afford whatever Atticus needed. Shops that already advertised upgraded their ad size. Full-page ads, typically rare, started appearing more regularly in the ’Toad.