Valentine: A Boston Tale

I never imagined that I could fall in love with a dog. I always embraced the idea that dogs drooled and cats ruled.

The house was quiet. Mr. Popcorn, my tabby, had passed a few weeks ago, and I still felt the hollow ache of his absence. 

Fifteen years. 

Fifteen years of soft purrs, dough making, and the quiet companionship that no human ever quite matched. He had been there before marriage, curled up on the sofa while I studied in grad school, his warm body a comfort against the loneliness of a broken heart. He had endured the hard career moves and the search for identity that followed me like a shadow. When I met Ted, Mr. Popcorn had accepted him. Ted had to pass the tough approval of my feline sentinel, who was notoriously picky in his affections.

He had watched me become a wife. He had been there when Patrick was born, curling around my ankles during those long, sleepless nights, never complaining, always present, his purrs a lullaby for the new chaos of motherhood. His death broke my heart in ways I could not have predicted.

I wandered from room to room, touching the soft places where he had slept, listening for the faintest sound of his paws on the hardwood. 

Patrick noticed my grief.

“Mama,” he said gently, “you miss him, don’t you?”

I nodded, feeling tears well. “Yes.”

Ted reached for my hand, squeezing it. “It’s okay to miss him. It’s okay to miss your friend.”

I wanted to stay in my grief, thinking it was the only way to honor fifteen years of steadfast love. And then Patrick tugged at my sleeve. “Mom, tomorrow we’ve got an idea!”

The next day, at the animal shelter, a little black-and-white Boston Terrier looked up at me with eyes far too big for his face and a nose that scrunched in the most ridiculous way. He honked, not barked, like a miniature goose. I laughed before I even realized it, a real laugh that startled me. 

When had been my last real laugh?

Ted leaned close. “I think he picked you.”

I knelt, and the Boston Terrier, whom the shelter had named Valentine, crawled into my lap, trembling like he was vibrating with excitement. He had no tail, so his booty wagged like a tiny metronome. I laughed again, and something inside me unclenched just a little.

Patrick bounced beside me. “We have to take him!”

I hesitated, thinking of the grief still hanging over our house. But something about Valentine’s earnest eyes, the honk that seemed almost like a question, softened my heart.

Weeks passed. Valentine settled in, but he quickly made his opinions known. Shoes were fair game until he learned otherwise, baseboards were an existential challenge when he decided to hike his leg, and furniture occasionally bore the brunt of his frustration, often just for dramatic effect. He did zoomies, tearing through the house at impossible speeds, bouncing off walls, the coffee table, and once, spectacularly, the laundry basket.

He honked at inanimate objects as though issuing a warning. He used his paws like a cat, reaching for anything on a counter or table. And when he was upset with me, say because I wouldn’t let him eat the chocolate chip cookie off the counter, he would turn his back in perfect Boston Terrier fashion, planting his little stubby legs firmly and ignoring me with the kind of calculated disdain only a dog of his lineage could muster.

One evening, Patrick found him perched in the corner, staring at the wall like a small, furry philosopher. “What is he doing?” he asked.

“Thinking,” I said, “about world domination, probably.”

Valentine’s antics were endless. A ball thrown for fetch could spark fifteen minutes of chaos: sprinting, sliding across the floor, honking triumphantly, then dropping it at my feet as if to say, I did this all for you. He occasionally tripped over his own enthusiasm, colliding with the sofa or me, and then shook it off with the dignity of a nobleman, as if to say, I meant for that to happen.

Amidst all the mayhem, he had moments of tenderness. When I prayed, he would lie quietly at my feet, even snoring softly during the Lord’s Prayer, paw occasionally brushing mine like a small benediction.

One night after Bible study, Ted said, “You and Valentine are together a lot.”

“He tolerates me,” I said.

Patrick giggled. “Mom, he sits outside the front bathroom every time.”

“That is not love. That is surveillance.”

Valentine honked in protest.

I smiled, watching him strut around in his black-and-white coat. Boston Terriers are known as the First Gentlemen of Canines in America, and he was always impeccably dressed in black and white. He had the dignity of an old-world noble, the mischief of a court jester, and the stubbornness of a small, furry dictator.

That night, as I lay between my husband and the ridiculous little dog, I whispered a prayer: “Thank You, Lord, for seasons and endings and beginnings. Thank You for Mr. Popcorn. Thank You for Valentine. Teach me to love with open hands.”

Valentine curled against me, paw resting on my 

wrist like a promise. And even when he honked in the middle of the night for no reason at all, I couldn’t help smiling.

I knew love had found me again, in a small, honking package I never asked for but desperately needed, sent on a day devoted to hearts, by the God who heals them.