Harper’s House

I agree with writer Jim Harrison when he wrote:

“Barring love I’ll take my life in large doses alone–rivers, forests, fish, grouse, mountains. Dogs.”

People can be difficult. Dogs are different. Dogs bring love to our lives unconditionally and with no questions asked.

Earlier this week, we had to say goodbye to our dog Harper. She was spring-loaded with love and energy; she bounded and leaped in place like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh when her people came to the door.

A growth in her stomach changed her over the last couple weeks, which we hoped might be pancreatitis and tried to treat with our fingers crossed. It wasn’t. When we got home Wednesday night, she couldn’t get off the couch. She was shaking and panting and suffering in constant pain. She let us know it was time.

Harper changed our lives. When life hit the restart button in 2014, I moved into a guest house down a long winding road that had a no pets policy. The family pets stayed with the girls’ mom, and the girls spent equal time with each of us. This was the first time in my life, and theirs, that any of us had lived without pets.

After a year we moved to Oxford into another no pets house. A year later, the girls and I talked and decided our house needed a dog. We weren’t a family without one. Our landlord agreed to a dog, up to 35 pounds.

Through Operation Paws for Homes, we learned about an “Australian Shepherd Mix” who had been found on the streets of Columbia, SC, and who was now being fostered in York, PA. We knew from the picture that she was our dog.

I drove to pick her up on June 4, 2016. They guessed she was about six months old. My older daughter Anna wanted to name her Harper after her favorite baseball player, Bryce Harper—when he was still a “good guy” and played for the Washington Nationals I told Anna that players don’t often stay with one team, so we need another namesake, which was writer Harper Lee, of “To Kill a Mockingbird” fame.

Harper made our house a home instantly. She zoomed around the fenced in yard, loved walks around Oxford, and enthusiastically greeted dogs and people as they walked by the house. Two years later we moved to Easton and she patrolled the yard; learned to begrudgingly deal with cats, and kept our house safe from walkers and dog walkers in the neighborhood. Harper was a big fan of the pandemic lockdown in 2020–it meant we were always home.

Walks around Tuckahoe State Park, Wye Island, and Easton’s Rails to Trails or Easton Point Park were Harper dreams turned reality. With her herding personality, she stuck close to her people, even in the house, or the writing shed out back, always lying next to one of us, always where the people were.

Seven years ago she met Holly’s black Lab puppy Luna and the two hit it off and loved to play at each other’s houses. We called Harper the “hall monitor,” as she didn’t tolerate off-hand behavior and would tell on Luna if she was trying to get food off the counter, get into the trash, or engage in any behavior that seemed suspicious.

Harper brought unconditional love and unbridled energy and enthusiasm to our lives. Every night, she slept against me, and every 0’Dark:30 alarm clock, she bounded out of bed ahead of me to go out and then curl up for morning coffee, reading, and writing.

I come back to this Milan Kundera quote frequently:

“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don’t know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring–it was peace.”

There is a stillness here now, a silence that is not peace, though Harper is at peace. We have loved and been privileged to share life with her. Her presence was her gift. She made us more of a family.

Wherever she was with us, it was Harper’s House.