Prophet

I get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, careful not to step on him, and then remember with a sinking heart that he is no longer here.

I jump up in the morning, ready to go, and then remember that I have no compelling reason to leave the house. 

I walk down the street, encountering other people and their dogs, and then remember that I am no longer one of them.

Prophet was so many things.

He was an extremely patient teacher, more than I was at my best. He calmly prompted me, again and again, in the ever-present faith that I would eventually learn.

He was smart. No matter that I talked to myself too much, gave ambiguous and confusing instructions, became distracted... he acquired an insanely large vocabulary to understand me. And not only me. Prophet responded to directions given by others, to other dogs, in English, Spanish, and Hebrew. If another person summoned their dog, he would dash over immediately with a smile, as if to say, "Look at me! I'm a good boy!"

He was filled with joy. In his last months he enjoyed sitting in the field laughed while he watched the puppies chase each other around. Even while struggling to walk he smiled at everyone. If we were watching TV, Prophet sat, smiling, and watched us.

He was always up for an adventure. On daily walks in the woods he pressed for us to leave the trail, check out a stream, climb a rock. We climbed Mt. Jefferson and Mt. Washington in the Whites. We hiked in the Catskills, in Harriman, in the Taconics. He swam in Long Island Sound, in the Hudson River, the Bronx River, the Mullica River in the NJ Pines, and the Mill River near Mt. Tom in Massachusetts. Prophet leaped repeatedly from the dock at Lake Kezar in Maine, and - again, repeatedly - ran down a near-vertical crag in Van Cortlandt Park in The Bronx. He walked Pelham Bay Park, Crotona Park, Bronx Park, Central Park, Riverside Park, Washington Square Park, Union Square Park, Inwood Park, Fort Tryon Park, St. Nicholas Park, River Park, Prospect Park, the Coney Island Boardwalk.

He was brave. I never saw Prophet start a fight, but I never saw him back down from one, either. Bigger dogs, two at a time, even four against him. I once kept him away from a hostile Great Dane for weeks, leashing him, taking him off the trail and down an embankment while that dog's owner allowed her to run across and menace him. When I finally dropped the leash, he picked up that Dane and shook her, but without breaking the skin! Once a lost and frightened Husky who we did not know attacked him. I had heard the owners calling from a distance somewhere else in the woods and realized this must be their dog. I wasn't sure how to break up this fight between Prophet and a strange dog, but - trusting his disposition and his trust in me - I picked up the Husky's hind legs. Prophet immediately stepped back. What a relief.

He was friendly. We used to joke that he was running for office because he greeted every dog and person he encountered. They say German Shepherds are one-person dogs, but Prophet had a circle. There were people whose laps he leaped into. When some people turned up, he threw himself at their feet to demand a belly rub. He was utterly convinced that the letter carrier and the contractors and Judith's harp teacher came to the house just to visit with him. 

But most of all, Prophet was consequential. He made an impact on everyone who met him. He was a leader of dogs. He came into my life when being retired from the high school principalship was really catching up with me. If the definition of a ghost is a departed spirit who doesn't know he is gone and so keeps haunting the living... well, I felt that was me. Prophet didn't just fill the void of daily contact with hundreds of teens and dozens of teachers. He reminded me to be appreciative of what I had. Every day, walking in the woods, I would catch myself looking for the extraordinary: an eagle, a warbler, an owl. Every day I would remember that I had the most extraordinary companion walking by my side and that we had the sky, the river, the trees, and the dirt.

I miss him. But I am trying to hold onto that sense of appreciation. I really am trying.