Big Dog

Lynch is dead.
Trump is going to be president.
The world is changing.
My father died when I was five.
One day, in front of a shop window, he asked me to choose a stuffed animal.
I wanted the big gray dog.
"Wouldn't you rather have the monkey?" – he'd had a monkey when he was young.
I said no, the dog.
So, the dog.
It's always stayed with me, almost by accident.
I never took special care of it.
It was never the first thing I packed when I moved.
I'd almost have forgotten it.
But somehow, it followed me.
Like a dog.
And recently, as it happens, I rearranged my room, and it's still there, sitting on a bench.
My room is almost empty, you see:
The bed, a few books, a wardrobe with not much in it.
And the dog.
And when my son sleeps over, often in the morning, he comes into my room and shouts "Big Dog!". He picks him up in his arms. He takes him to his room to play with his other stuffed animals. After a while, I tell him "Big Dog is tired, he has to go back to bed". He says okay and puts him back on his bench. He puts a bandage on him "because his paw hurts". He turns him the right way "so he can see".
It makes me smile every time.
But tonight, thinking about it all, I'm in tears.