They told me a group of high school students would be coming in that day, and that they would be bringing their pets for something called “pet therapy.” I had been so excited for that day; I had been in the hospital for so long I had nearly forgotten why I was there in the first place. I had owned many pets as a young girl, but I had not held one of those small fury critters for what seemed like forever. So, early that morning, when I heard the excited yaps of puppies, the twitters of parakeets, and the soft, nearly indistinguishable mews of kittens, I was ready to finally have an exciting day in the hospital. I painfully moved my legs to one side of the bed, patting down the sheet, making room for a dog or a cat. I glanced at the door every few minutes, willing it to open. Yet, after what seemed like an hour, no one showed up. I began to worry; what if they had forgotten me? What if I was destined to stay here, alone, only able to hear what would have been warming sounds of the animals?
Finally, I heard a quiet knock at the door, the soft click of claws on the linoleum floor outside. The door cracked open, and a young girl peered inside.
“Hi, are you Miss Dehatin?” the girl asked.
“Why yes I am,” I replied. “Please, come in,” I said, gesturing to the cushioned chair by the foot of the bed.
The girl opened the door wider, revealing a small blonde lhasa apso staring intently at a cookie crumb on the floor.
“Come on Mosey,” the girl said to the dog, gently pulling on the leash to coax him into the room. “Come on, we’re going to say hi to this nice lady.”
Grudgingly, the dog left his cookie crumb, and followed the girl into the room. She walked over to the bed but didn’t sit down, playing with the leash nervously as if she were unsure of what to do. The girl wore a too-big t-shirt, glasses, and two pigtails. She looked so young – is that really how high school students are? Those days seemed so far in the past. The little dog sniffed around, nosing the bed, the dresser, the chair.
“So, uh, I’m Lisa, and this is Mosey. He’s a lhasa apso,” the girl said.
“And I’m Gwendolyn,” I said, smiling. “Why don’t you sit down? That visitor’s chair is barely used.”
Lisa sat down, but still looked as if she were unsure of what to do. Her eyes flickered between the bed and Mosey, who was taking the opportunity to explore every dustless corner of the room. While he was sniffing around, Lisa told me about herself and her dog.
Mosey was a two year old lhasa apso who still thought he was a puppy. He had come into Lisa’s life two Christmases ago, as a tiny six-week old ball of fur. He loved to sniff everything he saw, smelt, or heard, which had earned him the nickname Nosey Mosey. Lisa herself was a ninth grader at Tempo School, a small private school not far from the hospital. She had recently moved to California from Montana the summer before. I must have looked surprised, for she looked at my expression quizzically. I, too, had lived in Montana, I explained. In fact, I had lived in the same little town until I turned 18, and went off to college.
Once I started speaking, it was as if I couldn’t stop. I had not had a visitor in months; I lived alone, and my family was scattered around the country, around the world. I spouted out my life story, reminiscing about my first day of high school, my time in college, the time we went camping, the year the temperature dropped so low that one could not go outside without wearing at least three sweaters and a parka… And through it all, Lisa listened, saying little, but not zoning out, either. I felt as if I should stop speaking, allow her to talk more, perhaps about Mosey, perhaps about herself, perhaps about something entirely different, but I had not told these stories in such a long time, and they just kept pouring out, one after another. With every story, I lived that little part of my life over again. I almost felt as if I were sitting in room 2104 again, giving that presentation I had not known about at all. I felt myself shiver in the warm room while describing the snowy winter my husband and I went camping. I could hear the welcoming yaps of Charlie, the cocker spaniel I had had when I was a teenager. Every story reminded me of another, and I surprised even myself as I began telling about random points in my life, like the first time I went in for a job interview, and the time I got mad at my boss, yelled, “I quit!” and stormed out, only come back in an hour later and ask if I really had quit or if I could go back to work. By the time I finished speaking, nearly two and a half hours had passed. By now, Mosey had exhausted the room of things to sniff, so he had jumped on the bed to take a nap. I stroked his head without really paying attention, but I still managed to notice and enjoy the soft silkiness of his fur.
After my final story had drawn to a close, I said, “I’ve been talking far too much, and you’ve barely said anything. So tell me, how did Mosey get his name?”
Mosey was actually short for Mozart, the famous Austrian composer. The first time the puppy had walked into Lisa’s house, Mozart’s Symphony 25 had been playing. The little puppy walked directly to the music player, and sat on it for the duration of the song. The next track was Antonio Salieri’s Symphony in D – but at the first notes of this piece, the puppy had jumped vertically in the air and run away! Lisa, in seeing this spectacle, joked that the puppy must be a reincarnation of Mozart, and disapproved of the Italian composer. The name stuck, until Lisa’s younger brother Mark decided that Mozart was too hard to say, and began referring to the dog as Mosey. This name caught on, and eventually Mozart was introduced to all as Mosey.
It seemed as if the continuous story-telling was contagious, for Lisa began recounting Mosey’s numerous adventures, which included eating two chocolate bars, discovering a bird’s nest in the backyard, and many other instances in which his nose led to trouble.
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and the half hour that had been left of the visiting time did just that. Lisa got up from her chair, and after I had given him one last pat on the head, helped Mosey jump off the bed.
Once she had left, I closed my eyes and lay my head back on the pillow. I wished I had done more than just said “Thanks for coming.” Lisa had done much more for me than she probably imagined. She had listened patiently to me, a silly old lady, tell life stories that probably had nothing to do with her own life. She had given me two important things I had not had while in the hospital: someone to talk to, and a little dog to pet and play with. We had met as strangers, and technically still were. Yet after those short three hours, I felt as if I had made a new friend.
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