But that didn’t stop me from working hard during the day. I loved my job, and I still needed a distraction from thoughts about Jane, most of them not very helpful. In the spring of 2009 as I flew down to New York for my annual job review, the economy was on shaky ground and most days there were articles in the newspapers of sizable corporate layoffs. Even though I had developed several large projects and had good relationships with clients and co-workers, I was a bit concerned about my upcoming review. One thing was certain: I did not bring any of my personal problems to work. In fact, to distract myself, I worked twice as hard after Jane left. Still, in a difficult economic environment anything is possible, and it was hard not to be anxious as I packed my suitcase, with my big dog watching my every move.
This was going to be my first time away from George and that was concerning, as well. I dropped him off at a highly recommended kennel. It was only for one night, I kept telling myself. He would be fine. As I registered him at the front desk, he leaned against me and I could feel him shaking. I knelt and took his head in my hands. “It’s going to be okay,” I said. “I’ll be back before you know it.” His eyes drilled into mine with a panicked look that broke my heart. How could I do this to him?
A male kennel worker took the leash from me and said, “Okay, George. Come with me. We’re going to have a great time together.” That’s when George dropped to the ground and gave us the now-familiar “I’m not going to move” look.
“He’s kind of afraid of men,” I said. The guy eyed me like I was a bit nuts. As he was re-evaluating George’s determined look and his bulky frame glued to the floor, the receptionist had an idea.
“Go get Jennifer,” she said.
Jennifer arrived and soothed George with lots of cooing, and George followed her—albeit reluctantly—to his temporary home.
“Bye, George,” I said. He turned his head my way for a last glimpse before leaving the room. How could I explain to him that I wasn’t leaving forever? I couldn’t.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said. And off I went to the airport.
I arrived several hours later at MKTG’s headquarters situated in Chelsea Market, a hip and historic district on the edge of the Hudson River in southwest Manhattan. I spent much of the morning catching up with friends and touching base on a few projects and then, just before lunch, knocked on Charlie Horsey’s door.
Charlie was my boss and MKTG’s CEO. He is easily one of the most savvy minds in American advertising; however, at first glance he looks like the guy next door: tall, clean-cut, casually dressed in a dark sport coat, jeans and a buttoned-down shirt. He was wearing some very colorful Nike kicks on his feet, though. Charlie was the kind of boss who could sit in on a brainstorming session, hear strategies people had been developing for weeks, even months, and then suggest a better one off the top of his head, all the while managing not to offend anyone. He was tough but fair, and crazy smart.
“Colin, it’s great to see you! Come on in,” he said as he gave me a handshake and a hug and waved me into his office. I asked about his wife and four kids; he knew Jane was gone and did me the favor of not dwelling on it much. Instead I told him all about George.
“So a dog, huh?” he said.
“Yup. It’s great having him around. He’s been really good company.”
We talked about a few other things, and when we were good and caught up on our personal lives and a few business issues, he opened a folder on his desk.
“So,” he said with a great big grin. “Ready to be reviewed?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
“I want to start by saying that I’m well aware of the challenges of pitching new business in Canada—especially in this type of year—and we’ve been really happy with the relationships you’ve built.”
He paused. “You’re waiting for the ‘but’?”
I nodded.
“Well, the ‘but’ is that the progress you’ve made hasn’t been quite what we were hoping for.”
He was right. Everybody was struggling and my office was no exception. “Charlie, I realize things could be better, but—”
Before I could finish my sentence, Charlie interrupted. “We’ve just completed a deal to buy an agency in Los Angeles,” he said. “We think there’s a lot more promise in that market than we’re finding in Canada right now.”
My heart sank. The worst-case scenario was about to happen. He was going to close the Toronto office—I was going to lose my job.
Charlie studied my face for a moment. “This new office in L.A. will bring us some exciting opportunities. We need someone to run the place, lead our culture and the way we do business. I’ve decided that person should be you.”
I was sure I’d misheard, misunderstood, mis-something-ed. “Sorry?”
“Colin, we’re transferring you to Los Angeles.”
“Los Angeles, California?”
“No, the other Los Angeles, the one in Wisconsin,” he said, laughing. “Of course California.”
“I’m moving to L.A.?”
“You’ve got the experience, you’re great with clients and employees, and we need someone senior on the ground out there who can help us navigate this merger.” He leaned over and lowered his voice. “It will be great for you personally, and it’s the right time in your life to have a fresh start like this.”
He let that sink in and then continued. “Plus I know you’re a hockey player, but you look like a surfer. You’ll totally fit in.”
The whole conversation was surreal, like it was happening to someone else. “So, I’m going to L.A.”
“Yes!” He reached out to shake my hand. “We will have your work visa all sorted out. We want you there as soon as possible. Welcome to America, my friend! Are you in?”
As a kid growing up in a small town, I never imagined that someday I would be sitting in a fancy office in New York City about to accept a job as an executive in Los Angeles, California. I thought of my grandfather. I thought of our walks on the beach and how he always taught my brother and me that hard work pays off and that taking on new challenges is a good thing. I wished I could have called him then, just to hear his voice.
I think he would have been proud. I also knew that Charlie was right about the fresh start.
I smiled and looked up at Charlie. “Okay. I’m in,” I said as I reached out and shook his hand.
“Great! You’ll start in six weeks. We’ve got a town house lined up for you in Hermosa Beach. Paul will help you with the visa and the financial stuff. Any other questions?”
“Just one,” I said. “Is the town house big enough for a 140-pound dog?”
ELEVEN
After an evening dinner and small celebration with Charlie and other MKTG friends, I grabbed a flight home the next morning and headed to the kennel to pick up George. It was starting to sink in that I had agreed to move to the U.S., to Los Angeles, a city I had only seen in the movies.
I thought about George on the flight back. How would he take to moving yet again? And what about the weather? Would it be too warm for him? Things were starting to fall into place with us, and we now had a routine that included walks, eating, sleeping and as many hugs as I could give him each day. Dogs like structure and I suspected George liked it even more than most dogs. And here I was, about to move him across the continent to a new home, a new city, a new country, even a new climate.
I pulled into the kennel with all these thoughts on my mind, plus one more: I missed him and couldn’t wait to see him. I wondered, had he missed me?
“We’ll bring him right out,” the receptionist said. “He was a very good boy.”
As soon as George laid eyes on me, he went crazy with excitement. “George!” I said, kneeling on the ground, and he rushed to me and nearly knocked me over. “It’s so good to see you,” I said, burying my head in his neck as he licked my face. He was wagging his tail so hard his entire back end shook from side to side, and when I got to my feet, he jumped up and put his big paws on my shou
lders in a bear hug. He looked me in the eye and then started licking my face. He nearly knocked me back to the ground. All I could do was laugh.
“I missed you, too, big guy!”
The kennel employees watched as the big dog continued his excited dance, bouncing on the floor and spinning in a tight circle. I thanked the staff and gave George a gentle tug on his leash. “Let’s go, buddy,” I said. “Let’s go home. I have some big news to tell you.”
Navigating the city traffic on the way home, I told him out loud about the meeting in New York. Yes, that’s right: I talked to my dog. He cocked his head and listened with rapt attention. “George, we’re moving to Los Angeles.” I told him all the details about the new job, what was good about it and what I was concerned about. I told him about my work visa and the timing and that we’d have a new home by the beach. Now, I’m not so crazy as to think that George understood what I was saying, but there’s no doubt that he was an excellent listener, and it helped me to articulate everything.
“Here we are, George,” I said as we pulled into the driveway. I opened the door and George trotted right in the house—our house. Within a few minutes we were back to our very comfortable domestic routine, no worse for wear from our first night apart.
The month and a half between being offered the job transfer and the day George and I actually left Toronto was a total blur. At work I was tying up loose ends and getting familiar with the Los Angeles client case studies. At home I was deciding what to bring with me and how to get it to California, as well as learning how to take a dog across the border.
I also had to think more deeply about what to do with the house—a house that Jane and I still co-owned. I decided it was best to sell it, but that meant I’d have to contact Jane. We’d been split up for more than a year by that point and had barely spoken since the end of couples’ therapy. Every once in a while I’d experience something profound and have the urge to share it with her. Especially after I got George, I’d wanted to call her and say, “Guess what? I got a Newfoundland dog, and he’s great!” But ultimately I stopped myself, because the person I so desperately wanted to connect with didn’t exist anymore—at least, not for me—and I knew that by reaching out, I’d be left feeling lonelier than before I’d called.
This time was different, though. This time I was calling Jane out of practical necessity. Not knowing her new home number, I phoned her at work. I’d been prepared to leave a voice mail, but she picked up on my first attempt.
“Jane speaking.” It was the same voice I recognized and loved, but it sounded odd to hear it after all this time.
“Hi, it’s me,” I said. “How are you?”
“What’s up?” she asked. I couldn’t hear any emotion in her voice.
I moved right to practicalities. “I’ve got a new job. I’ve been promoted and am moving to Los Angeles. I think we need to sell the house.”
“Oh,” she said. “Okay.”
We figured out the details quickly and easily. “That works for you?”
“It does,” she answered.
“Well, I guess that’s it then.” I paused. I wanted so much for her to ask me how I was, what else was new—anything. It was a foolish hope.
“Okay, well … that’s really it. Bye, Jane.” I hung up without waiting for her to say goodbye in return.
When I put down the phone, George was lying beside me on the couch, his back end closest to me. With great determination, he turned his big body around so he could lay his head in my lap.
“You’re a good boy, George,” I said. And instead of falling apart, as I thought I would after a conversation like that with Jane, I rubbed his big, velvety ears and felt … okay. I was still anxious, I was still hurt and I was definitely sad, but I wasn’t broken. And I wasn’t going under, not this time.
As I sat there, I remembered when my grandfather first taught me to swim. I couldn’t have been more than a couple of years old. He took me by the hand and walked me out into the ocean. “It’s not that cold,” he said with a wink, knowing full well it was. And when the water got too high, he let me wrap my arms around his neck so that I’d learn to float in his wake. As an adult, it wasn’t lost on me that this is exactly how he’d earned a medal for bravery in World War II. Injured Allied troops drowning on Juno Beach wrapped their arms around his neck and he swam them through machine-gun fire to the safety of shore. He did this several times, until he was ordered to stop and seek safety inland.
“You’re okay, my boy,” he’d say to me as I clung to his neck, but I was never scared, because I was with him. When I was older, he taught me how to hold my breath underwater.
“Remember—always keep your eyes open.”
“But, Grandpa, it stings.”
“It only hurts for a second. Then you get used to it.”
Because I knew he was telling the truth, because I trusted him, I tried it. And he was right. It was uncomfortable, but not for long. Soon enough the sting went away, and a whole new underwater world opened up before my eyes.
As my big move to L.A. approached, I needed to let Dr. Hamer know that I was relocating, and to get a bit of perspective on things. I wanted to find out if I would be okay, if I was really ready for such a big life change. I wasn’t sure that I was. I still worried that George might not be ready for another move. Both things had me preoccupied. It had been almost fourteen months since I started seeing Dr. Hamer, and I was very hopeful that he would say I was ready to go.
Lying back on the couch, I revealed my big news about moving and my brief call with Jane.
“I can recommend a new doctor in L.A., if you’d like.”
“Seeing someone there would be costly. My health insurance won’t cover it in the States,” I said. “Besides, I think I’ve gotten better.”
Silence.
“I’ve progressed, haven’t I? Maybe not a hundred percent, but I definitely feel better.”
“Do you want me to tell you that you’re fine?”
“Well, yes … but not if it isn’t true.”
“Why do you feel you need me to tell you you’ve gotten better?”
“It’s been over a year. I’ve been trying really hard. I’d like to know what you think.”
He didn’t look up from his pad but smiled. “You’ve definitely made progress and aren’t as wobbly as you were early in our sessions, but you’re also right that you’re still not a hundred percent.”
“Okay. That’s fair,” I said.
“I think there have been signs of improvement, but it’s important that you recognize them rather than have me tell you them.” He waited a minute to let that sink in. “Let me change the subject. Do you think you have helped the dog you adopted?”
I lay there on the couch through an awkward silence and gathered my thoughts. “You know, the crazy thing is that I rescued this dog, but there are some days when I wonder if I’ve got it backward.”
Dr. Hamer nodded and scribbled away on his pad. “What do you mean by that?”
“I don’t really know,” I said, and meant it. “We finished obedience training a couple months ago. George was really bad at the beginning. Couldn’t follow a single instruction. He was a mess.”
Dr. Hamer chortled.
“One of the instructors at the school gave me some good advice on how to help him, and so I did it.”
“Did what?” Dr. Hamer’s pen was poised.
“I hugged him,” I said. Tears welled in my eyes as I lay there looking at Dr. Hamer’s ceiling. I knew every crack and small stain on it.
“The instructor said that George might start to be a normal, happy dog if he could leave his past behind. And she told me to hug him.”
“So do you think you have to do the same thing as George? Do you have to leave your past behind?”
I hated when he did this—turned the discussion back to me, when all I wanted was to talk about something else.
“I guess so. Yeah,” I said.
“Do you think it would hel
p if someone hugged you? Does George hug you?” he asked.
Since I had not grown up in a demonstrative family, the one thing I had loved about Jane was that she was not shy about holding my hand or giving hugs.
I struggled to answer. I thought about how George leaned all his weight into me whenever he said hello, and how the moment I picked him up at the kennel after being away a day, George jumped up and put his big paws around my neck.
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess he does hug me.”
“Well, it sounds like you are off to a good start.”
TWELVE
There’s a reason most dogs you see on TV shows and movies set in California are short haired and small. It’s hot there. Really hot. And as the weeks passed and our date for going to California approached, matters got worse when wild fires erupted throughout Los Angeles County, heating things up even more. I started to worry more about George and how he might react to the heat. I worried that this move might be the worst possible thing—physically and emotionally—I could do to him right now.
I decided to call the Hermosa Beach Animal Hospital and talk directly to someone who knew how the weather might affect a large, furry dog like George. A very cheery receptionist greeted me on the phone. When I told her where I was calling from, she said, “Lots of snow there today?” It was mid May and seventy-one degrees Fahrenheit in Toronto. Obviously this woman didn’t know much about Canadian weather.
I changed the subject. “So, I’m just wondering if Hermosa Beach is safe for a big, furry dog, especially with the wild fires blazing. I’m moving there with a Newfoundland and I’m curious about whether it will be cool enough for him,” I said.
Silence. It was the Canadian equivalent of asking her if she lived in an igloo. After a long pause, she said, “I think you’re pretty safe from the wild fires because we’re right on the ocean. They generally burn pretty far away from here. And the temperature by the beach rarely gets higher than seventy-two degrees—perfect for humans and dogs alike.” I could almost hear her rolling her eyes.
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