Nature Boy and Gromit

A few months ago Nature Boy died and went to Narnia; not long after that Gromit followed him. Nature Boy was Patrick’s Catahoula Leopard Dog, Gromit was Patrick’s Boston terrier. I realize that they were Alice’s and Seth’s and Silas’s dogs too, but having said that…they were Patrick’s. Nature Boy was an old man; he walked old, he spoke old, he eyed you with the eye of old. Nature Boy associated me with food, Gromit associated me with stick throwing – I really didn’t have much of a relationship with Gromit because he was a bit temperamental. If Gromit was in Patrick’s pickup truck and the window was down and you ventured close he bit you. He was okay in the yard on in the house but when he was in that pickup truck he was on guard duty and he didn’t bother to ask, “Who goes there? What’s the password?” He’d shoot first and didn’t bother about questions.

When Gromit saw me outside the truck he’d bring a stick and insist that I throw it, not taking “no” for an answer and without an apology for the last time he shot me from the truck’s window. When Nature Boy saw me he came to see if I had food for him, he was the “leftovers go-to guy” of our home.

We’ve been moving from the Homestead over the past three weekends. Our time at the Zuck Homestead was a journey through a wardrobe in many respects, a place of respite and reflection and renewal; and a place of grappling with internal Calormenes. The house we lived in is a house we passed numerous times in years gone by; first we knew it as the house where David’s aunt Catherine lived; after Catherine died David and Sally purchased it from David’s cousins for Sally’s parents, Sal and Wanda. Wanda died in that house, it was her last home. Once when we were visiting from Massachusetts we slept in an upstairs bedroom that would one day be my office, a room lined with books and also a room where we rolled up the carpet to practice ballroom dancing.

Our church, New Venture Christian Fellowship, held a Sunday morning worship service around Christmas 2005 in that home. I led Wanda’s memorial service in the house. Little did Vickie and I know that one day we’d be back not to visit but to live. Little did we know that the very room where we prayed and sang songs was a room where we would build a fire, entertain friends, and contemplate the present and future and the mercies of God.

When we went through the wardrobe in the fall of 2009 Nature Boy came down just about everyday to check things out. Lily, our Border Collie, was just a puppy then and Nature Boy was pretty intimidating with his large size and commanding bark, not that he would hurt her, but since Lina, our Basset mix, didn’t know Nature Boy she made sure she was around Lily to protect her during Nature’s forays.

It has been strange walking the Homestead these past few months without seeing and hearing Nature Boy on patrol; it is strange to go to the Revere house and not have an excited Gromit dart at me with a stick. Watching Alice and Seth and Silas on a walk down the lane without their dogs is a vision not quite right. Nature Boy and Gromit stayed on a while after Patrick left us, then I suppose they felt they’d done all they could do and went through their own wardrobe to be with Patrick.