A little Christmas Eve magic
Before we moved to France, Michel and I lived in a house a few steps away from the one I grew up in. My family was one whose roots ran deep. My grandfather, who died decades before I was born, owned a business which included a general store at a time when these were central to local communities. I knew a lot of people in the area as you do when you’re a few generations down the line and don’t move away. So when Michel and I decided to get our first dog, Jasmine, whenever I walked her locally, I’d meet people who knew me, or a sibling or two, or dad, mum, an aunt, or great aunt, or grandparents. Jasmine was the spark for making several interesting connections. When she died in December 2010 Michel and I mourned her along with many of those she connected me with.
On Christmas Eve I found myself remembering some of these connections. And my mind led me through a host of memories. They came to the surface as I watched the dogs wrestle a soft toy off one another. And I came to the conclusion that Christmas is a time rich in myth and magical stories. And fairy tales and folklore and this traditional spirit of Christmas paid me an unexpected visit.
A short time after Jasmine’s death, 8 week old Renae came to live with us. At the time, I received a gift, a toy, a soft teddy which looked a lot like a schnauzer. It was almost too nice a looking teddy to be a dog toy. And neither the giver, nor me were totally sure if it was. She chose it she said, because it reminded her of Jasmine. Knowing how heartbroken I was, she felt the right time to give it was when our puppy Renae arrived home. Her thoughtfulness touched me, and the emotions the gift represented. But not being one for soft toys, I decided it would be Renae’s. I accepted that being a puppy, if she chewed its insides out, I wouldn’t be sentimental.
As Renae’s puppy months passed, she was a typical chewy puppy. But she wasn’t a destroyer and the teddy survived her puppyhood intact. It sat in her toy box, or bed, given more, or less attention through the years, requiring the odd minor repair but staying remarkably unharmed. Renae’s adopted sisters showed little interest in it, toys were never their thing. Although Susie-Belle did like it for a pillow. This photo on the jacket of the hardback edition of ‘Saving Susie-Belle’ has her head resting on Renae’s toy.
When we moved to France it came with us and its life continued as one of gentle neglect punctuated by sporadic bursts of Renae’s attention. Until that is Albert Claude arrived and he set about the contents of the toy box with vigour. Tug of war games with Renae ensued and I could see the toy’s survival was in peril. In an unfamiliar show of sentimentality, I moved it to higher ground, well out of paw reach. And then, when Renae died on Christmas Eve in 2021, it was one of the outlets for my unbearable grief. I didn’t want to look at it, nor throw it away. So I put it in a back room on a window sill in our old house. And there it sat, surviving the hot summer sun scorching through age crackled glass and the frosty chill of winter mornings in the unheated room.
I didn’t exactly care about saving it, but, silly as it seems, felt connected to Renae and Jasmine through it. Since moving house this summer I am not entirely sure where it has been. I hadn’t, until Christmas Eve thought about it. I haven’t seen it lying around and it hasn’t been with the other toys. We still have boxes full of stuff in the basement but none of the dogs’ things. Unpacking those were a priority and done on day one. It’s most likely that it has sat in my office. Until yesterday there were a couple of corners crammed with things I knew needed keeping safe. Corners I hadn’t got around to sorting through. And an old, raggedy, daft soft toy probably got itself included in the ‘need to keep safe’ chaos of the move.
I sat at my desk on Christmas Eve, clearing the last few jobs. The dogs were coming and going, entertaining themselves. I heard Albert crunching something and glanced across at him. I saw the teddy’s head in his mouth, one plastic eyeball in the early stages of obliteration. As my brain clicked gears I realised it was the teddy that I didn’t want destroyed (even though I hadn’t given it a thought for a very long time). I tossed up interrupting Albert or ignoring. Another crunch decided me but before I could get to the teddy in ran Tsuki and grabbed it from under Albert’s nose. Albert gave chase and a rumpus ensued in the living room with teddy in the centre. I thought of leaving them to it but as Tsuki swiftly proceeded to pull out teddy’s insides sentiment won the day and I took it away.
Until that point, Michel and I hadn’t talked that morning about it being 3 years since Renae died. But as I stood in the kitchen telling him about the sudden, lively reappearance of the teddy, we looked at one another and had the same thought. It is a little strange that her teddy, which takes us back through memories of Jasmine, should of all days be discovered then by the dogs and thrust itself into the centre of our attention. In the best tradition of magic around Christmas, if it was Renae making sure we wouldn’t forget what day it was, it worked.
We proceeded to open a bottle to have a little drink to the memory of all our dogs who have brought us great happiness as well as much sadness when they’ve left. Only, perhaps they never really leave us, we just no longer see them.
