Update:I decided I needed to update this post with a picture and two of my favorite Bravo stories.

I looked at the picture below just before bed last night, and it surely played a role in precipitating my dream:

Cricket, Me, and Bravo

Cricket, Me, and Bravo

As I’d hoped I would, I dreamt about Bravo last night. I was back at the small apartment where I grew up (6th – 12th grade) in Fort Lauderdale. It wasn’t a time travel dream — I was very much as I am now in appearance and temperament — but when I walked through the door, Bravo sat in the living room waiting for me.

Again young and healthy, he bounded up to me and I hugged him. “I was sad and crying about you this morning,” I said to him, “but now I don’t know why I felt that way.” He didn’t respond in human speech or “telepathy” — the dream would have been far less comforting had it been too fantastic — but I certainly got a “You don’t have to worry about me now” vibe from him.

I hope that was one of those very, very rare dreams we get that is both true and meaningful.

The song in the video below is one of the ways I’m coping with my loss. The theme matches the last words I said to Bravo at the vet’s office: “We’ll see you again.” I hope you enjoy it, too. (If you find the sound effects they added for the video too distracting, look up the original song on Songza.)

Story 1: The Dog Door
It was easy to love Bravo, but he was never the brightest of dogs. When C- and I first moved in together, back in 2000, we decided to install a doggie door so that he could go in and out as he wanted. We spent quite a bit of time trying to teach him how to use it from both sides, but even when we managed to successfully push him through to go out, he would still bark at the backyard door to be let back in.

One day, C- went off to run some errands, and I stayed at home with Bravo. When he signaled that he wanted to go out, I once again guided him through the doggie door and went back about my business while waiting for him to bark at the backyard door. I cranked up the music and went to the fridge to get lunch ready. The fridge in the apartment sat against the kitchen’s far wall, and the door swung out toward the rest of the room; meaning, that when you ducked down to get stuff off the lower shelf, you had no view of the rest of the kitchen.

Well, there I was singing along to the music, grabbing food for my meal, thinking Bravo was running wild outside. I shut the door and turn to walk to the counter, and there he is! I have never before or since seen something where I expected to see nothing, and I think that was the only time I’ve ever felt close to jumping out of my skin. The rascal had learned how to use the doggie door without telling us…and he nearly gave me a cardiac event when he decided to show off his newfound knowledge.

Story 2: The Buck
The apartment in the story above was right on the edge of some untamed property, and although we knew deer ran around in the woods beyond our backyard fence, we’d never seen any. We assumed they only came out at night.

One day — post-Bravo learning how to use the doggie door — he went outside to run around for a bit. After a long while, he began barking, loudly and at length. This puzzled me, because I knew by then that he’d learned to use the doggie door.

When I went to open the door, my confusion grew because his barking was clearly coming from the far side of the yard, not near the door. I threw open the door and began yelling, “Bravo! What the hell are you ba….” The words halted on my lips, because I walked out into the backyard to see Bravo facing the house, clearly barking to get my attention, while on the other side of our fence stood a magnificent buck.

Once Bravo saw me, he fell silent and kind of gestured with his head. The buck stared at Bravo, then at me, then at Bravo again. The three of us stood there in stunned silence for what felt like a very long minute, and then in less time than it takes for your brain to recognize the dot at the end of this sentence as a period, the deer turned and fled into the woods, in complete silence. I kind of gasped “camera?” as he disappeared, and Bravo gave me a contemptuous look. If we live through that moment again, I promise to be quicker with my camera, my friend.

As always, thank you for reading.

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