However I found that this Mookie was additionally improbably upbeat and self-confident. He would seize a deal with from my hand with an nearly savage gusto, then wait for an additional, his marble eyes staring with out blinking or betraying emotion, like a ballplayer at bat. He was able to nice pleasure, moments through which his mouth would break up open right into a smile that nearly went ear to ear. At these moments, I preferred to think about him out in proper area, patrolling his territory, snuffling the bottom till it was time to nab a fly ball on the run or stoop for a basket catch.
Mookie was additionally powerful, undeterrable, expert within the artwork of the comeback. Not lengthy after I adopted him, he was attacked by my neighbor’s German shepherd, and he spent per week in a veterinary hospital recovering from surgical procedure to resection his gut. I used to be distraught — I had given him sanctuary, solely to reveal him to an ambush — however Mook voiced no complaints, not even a whimper. He recovered with out issues. He additionally had a situation that brought on his again toes to tug, to the purpose that they generally bled on the concrete. A neurologist urged I crate him for a month. I balked. A month? That was an excessive amount of time on the bench. I gambled: We saved strolling, however I wrapped his again toes in nylon rain boots. After a month or so, he didn’t want the boots anymore.
Totally healed — or as healed as he was going to be — Mookie began to experience his new success. On our walks he usually broke right into a full trot, face lit by that inconceivable grin, ears flopping, tongue dangling from one aspect of his mouth like a cigarette. Watching him was briefly however completely satisfying, like watching a Dodger ball sail over an outfield fence for a house run. Mookie was the unqualified shiny spot in lots of my darker days as I wrestled with a lot through the yr — my father’s demise, fears that the demise of democracy was pending, happiness itself.
In the meantime the Dodgers, like the remainder of baseball, made their manner by way of the maze of Covid-19. They performed with out followers; video games have been suspended when essential. They persevered in an imperfect season that saved reinventing itself. Increasingly more, my Mookie felt just like the mascot for the second, and for a dangerous yr. When the Dodgers made it to the World Collection and promptly teetered as soon as once more getting ready to collapse, I didn’t maintain my breath — this was 2020, in spite of everything. However then they overcame, powered by Mookie Betts’s house run within the last sport. Serendipity was now synergy: I resolved to purchase a dog-size Dodger jersey with Betts’s title and quantity on the again, for Christmas. Mookie deserved the popularity.
Early in November, although, Mookie developed a foul cough and a wheeze. My vet recognized bronchitis, but it surely turned out to be one thing worse, one thing truly Covid-like in its results. He was put right into a tiny oxygenated kennel to assist him breathe. However after just a few days, it wasn’t sufficient. Mookie struggled, heaved, then began gasping for air like a fish out of water. On the fourth day, as I cried and held his head in my arms, he gasped mightily after which fell nonetheless, his tongue poked sideways out of this mouth the identical manner it did when he ran free.