Pal

Kami loved animals, all of them. She loved cats, dogs, bunny rabbits, hermit crabs, white mice, rats, fish, and birds. In fact, if it breathed, she loved it. Perhaps it was her soft heart, perhaps it was her innate need to nurture, perhaps it was because she could feel that they loved her, unconditionally. I guess we all need that.

When she was in first grade my brother, Phillip, gave Kami a puppy. He raised golden retrievers, beautiful dogs, and he had a new litter of puppies he let Kami come pick from. They were the cutest things! Round and fluffy, they looked like little balls of cream scampering over and under Kami's legs as she sat on the ground in the middle of them. I fell in love with the whole bunch of them. How in the world could you choose just one? But Kami knew right away which puppy belonged to her. He was the sweetest, most gentle little thing, with big black eyes and the cutest little nose, and believe it or not, a smile. Really. He was adorable.

We couldn't take the puppy home that day, he was too young to leave his mother, but Kami began counting down the days until he was old enough, and trying to figure out what she would call her new dog.

“I think you should name him Butch,” daddy told her confidentially. “Or maybe Petunia.” Moe loved to tease, and he'd had a calf named Petunia when he was a kid.

“No,” Kami told him seriously. “I'm going to name him Buttercup.”

Buttercup? Really? I tried to explain that Buttercup was kind of a girly name to give to a little boy puppy, but Kami didn't care. I don't know why she loved it so much, maybe because her big brothers and sisters loved to watch “The Princess Bride”, or maybe because her cousins had once sung a song about “My Little Buttercup” and she thought it was fun. One way or the other, she was pretty set on the name.

We had a couple of weeks to talk it over before she brought her puppy home. It didn't take long for her to discover that I wasn't the only one who thought she ought to choose a different name. It was probably her friend Jessica, or maybe her big brother Stephen who finally convinced her that Buttercup wasn't right, but she eventually changed her mind.

We went and picked up the puppy on a Saturday afternoon. Grandpa and Grandma came outside to see him as soon as we got home.

“What are you going to name your puppy?” Grandma asked first thing.

Kami was holding the little fluff ball in both arms. He was squirming and wiggling, licking her nose and cheeks and ears. She grinned great big and announced, “Pal!”

Pal was the perfect name, and he became her best friend. They loved each other so much. For the first couple of weeks he lived in a little pen in our backyard, close to the house, but soon he was able to move out to his long dog run under the apple trees at the back of our lot. It was the perfect place for a dog, cool and shady, with lots of room to run and jump and play. Moe built him an adorable dog house, and we decorated it with flowers and his name, and Kami spent more time there than in our own house.

One afternoon, after getting in some kind of trouble, I found her carrying her pillow and a blanket outside.

“Where are you going, young lady,” I asked her suspiciously.

“I'm running away,” she told me hotly.

“Were are you running away to?” I asked.

“I'm moving in with Pal!” .

And she did. She stuffed her blanket and pillow into the dog house, climbed in with her best friend, and stayed there all afternoon. I asked her what she was going to eat, and she assured me that dog food would be just fine. Yuck!

Moe thought it was so cute he got the video camera out so he could capture Kami's new home on tape for posterity's sake. She really did look cute out there. I guess the dog food wasn't as tasty as she thought it would be, or maybe she just got a little scared when the sun went down, but she did eventually come back into the house, and I was glad. But I will always be grateful that she had someone she believed loved her, no matter how much trouble she got in. I guess we all need a Pal like that.