diana cowgill

Over six months after my dad’s passing, I think about him everyday. Often it’s happy, but it’s been quite sad recently. Tom Conway loved crackpot ideas, and I had a great one. 

What if we could make those circus fumigation circus tents fireproof? Would they save houses during wildfires? 

I wanted to call him and just talk about it. He knew everything about How Things Work, and he could tell me immediately if I’d finally found my million dollar idea. Then he would ask about Kyle’s surfing, and I’d ask him about whatever, and he’d go on some tangent, and I’d hear a bad joke and his wonderful laugh and I would just really really love him.

I get a small wave of nausea when I miss him like this. An emptiness in the chest. A weakness in the hands. All I want is a little bit of conversation. Light, like he liked. I miss it so much I want to crawl under something and stew in the dark for a while.

But I won’t, because I need to tell the world about Ozzie. Ozzie is my best new dog friend. He bounded into my life on April 1st.

My dad died on February 6. One day after my birthday, two days after we heard that he was almost ready to go. 

We knew that my dad’s end was nearing, but when it actually came it devastated me. For weeks and weeks and weeks I couldn’t do anything but cry and try to survive the slowed down time.

Eventually, I decided enough was e-bloody-nough, and I needed a restart. So on April 1 I would celebrate my own personal New Year’s Day. I needed to be less bummed out all the time. I didn’t want to feel this way, my dad certainly wouldn’t have wanted it. And as for the untraditional timing? I figured if anyone had the right to fudge holiday dates it was the gaunt little half orphan I had shrivelled into.

April 1 I woke up early and headed to the beach to take a stroll along a paved walking path called The Strand. I’d been taking this walk with some consistency over the past several years but had stopped since my dad passed, because I had stopped everything at that point. But it was a positive thing that I wanted to get back into for my New Year.

I took my standard route past the pier, listened to my standard music, when very suddenly my life changed. From across the Strand I saw The Creature. Ozzie.

The Creature looks fictional. He is a Disney cartoon come to life. A dog in only the most technical sense of the word, with wiry fur, the face of a puppy, and long black ear hair that makes him look like he can take flight at any moment.

The Creature has been called fabulous, funny, delightful, extremely unusual. He is utterly unique, striking, and for me, literally irresistible.

I asked his mom if I could meet him. Yes, he’d be thrilled. I bent down to him. He rubbed up against me like an aggressive cat, weaving between my legs and nearly pushing me over. He jumped up. He chewed my arm. I struggled to stay upright. As he gnawed and leaned into me, his mother kept on saying I’m so sorry. He never does this. Don’t be sorry, I said. He is perfect.

Having a dog flip out over you when you’re depressed is the closest a human can feel to being an ice cube tossed into a hot pan. You’re transformed so fast you don’t even realize what’s happened. You’re frozen solid, then for a moment you’re dancing water, then you’re steam, released at long last into the world. Your molecules relax. You go from barely moving to fully alive. Smiling though it feels foreign. Laughing though the face muscles have gone stiff.

I felt like a human again when I met Ozzie. Grief had made me disappear. I’d wasted away and had grown comfortable being invisible. I didn’t want to be noticed or talked to. But to meet Ozzie, I needed to step up. Needed to take up space and ask for something.

And when I did it quite literally changed my life. Ozzie and I connected instantly on a soul level, which delighted his mother. I wish I could find a dog walker like you, she said. Someone who understands Ozzie. Well, I told her, I ain’t doing jack diddly but mourning and going to a depression class. Let me walk Ozzie!

And ever since then, I have! Nearly every weekday morning I go to Ozzie’s house and take him for an hourlong walk along the Strand. It’s short and sweet. We go as far as a little grassy area, where we take a break and look out at the ocean together.

Ozzie is a miracle I never could have planned for. A desperately needed balm for the Tom Conway-sized hole in my chest that’s healing slowly and unpredictably, and that I suspect will never fully close up. Pain is the price of love, after all, and I loved my dad immensely.