Mondays with Mike: Heroes all around

That’s Harper in his Seeing Eye graduation picture.

Last week we got word that Harper, the lovable yellow Labrador who saved Beth from being hit by a car years ago, passed away. He was 14.

 I chronicled Harper’s heroism in real time in a blog post—I hope you’ll take the time to read (or re-read) it. He really was a hero.

 Speaking of heroes, our friends who have taken Beth’s retired Seeing Eye dogs all should get Purple Hearts. They get terrific canine companions, yes—but the dogs are at the back end of their lives. To Randy (Dora), Nancy and Steven (Hanni), Chris and Larry (Harper), and Elisse (Whitney)—thank you for your generosity and for making parting with Beth’s dogs happy retirement parties, rather than sad goodbyes.

With that I’ll turn the blog over to one of Harper’s humans—Larry, who has his own poignant story that, as fate had it, would intertwine with Harper’s. After Harper and Beth’s near miss with a car, Harper experienced a sort of canine PTSD. Harper simply would not guide Beth more than a block from home. As it turns out, Larry—a Vietnam war veteran—understood Harper, and vice versa. With that, I’ll let Larry tell their story:

Harper came into my/our life at just the right time. I had mistakenly decided that I would retire, having convinced myself that I didn’t have the desire or energy to do the resume/interview thing again.

The problem with that thinking was that I have used work as a narcotic in my life. If I worked 12, 16 or 18 hours a day I could sleep through nights that would otherwise be the playground of the bugs and demons of my military and childhood experiences. When Harper came to live with us, I had run through all of the home repair projects that I had been using to keep me busy, and had become a raving insomniac. Harper arrived disoriented, and I had the impression that he also had demons that he was confronting.

When Hanni (on the left), met Harper (on the right), and Whitney with her back to the camera.

Chris worked with him during the day showing him that it was ok to relax and walk and sniff. At night Harper and I would sit in the dark, each, I’m sure, thinking “What is he thinking about, what is keeping you awake tonight?” At first he would stay in his bed with me watching as he would slowly drift off into a sometimes fitful sleep. I started to realize that I was drifting off first, sleeping in my chair, only to wake up to see a big yellow dog staring at me as if to say, “OK, now what?”

As the months rolled by, Harper became more comfortable in his new surroundings. I was sleeping more, and he was now sleeping in our bedroom—mostly in his bed. Sometimes he would sleep on the floor next to me. He would wake me up by laying his big head on the edge of the bed on those nights that my dreams were not so nice.

Harper was never one to be hugged, yet he loved to have his back and butt scratched. He loved to play the game of “find it,” where Chris would have him sit in the kitchen and then hide treats throughout the house and have him find them, encouraging him to “find it Harper, find it.” He loved the game or maybe it was the treat; regardless, I loved it.

Harper always met us with a wagging tail; I believe he loved people. If Chris and I got too heated in our breakfast conversation, he would come and stand between us, as if to say, “Is this really necessary?”

As we got older he became more and more uncomfortable with thunderstorms. We all spent some sleepless nights listening to thunder and rain. Nothing in my life has had as much meaning as those rainy nights when I was sure that in some small part I was repaying Harper for the nights that he helped me get through.

Yep Harper was a special guy, and will be missed.