The Tippy Effect

My third night in San Diego, California I had one of the best dreams in many years. I was back in Germany in the south of the country near Garmisch-Partenkirchen during the winter of 1976 staying at a luxury hotel in the Alps as a Honeymooner. I had just woke up and looked out the window to the ski slopes and the rocky face of the Alps behind it. I could see skiers and horse drawn sleds making their way up the icy streets to join in the fun on the slopes. The room was well furnished in German Alpine fashion and on the bed was an attractive naked woman with large breasts and long black hair. This was Gisela my wife, a Berlin born girl who said she would never marry an American soldier but did. I happened to look at myself in the mirror and saw that I was 25 or so and hair still dark. I walked over to the window and opened it. I could smell wood burning fires and horse manure. The cold Alpine air was very bracing yet inviting.

Gisela was awakened by the opening of the window and smiled at me. She said something in her native Berlinese that I didn’t catch and motioned for me to join her in bed and we made love. We stayed in bed all day except for needed bathroom visits. In the evening hunger finally drove us out of our bedroom and we showered and dressed. We went down to the hotel’s dining room and ordered trout from a large fish tank and the waiter captured our selection for the cook. We ordered wine with our candle lit dinner and on the stage a group of Bavarian folk singers and dancers provided the entertainment. When we finished our meal we put of our coats, boots and hats to tour the village and at last gained the advantage point where everything was laid out in perfection: The village, the ski slopes and the railway station. The view reminded me of a make believe Alpine village I saw a toy store once at Christmas; a place too perfect to be real.

Then I really did wake up, all alone and old in San Diego. I had rented a bed at the old Army-Navy YMCA not far from the bay. I turned on the light and looked at myself in the mirror – an old man of 60 without teeth and gone to fat. My hair was grey with no trace of the dark brown it had been many years ago. I was alone because Gisela had died in 1991 of cancer and we had no children. My parents and brother were dead many years in the past as well. I had become the last of the Mohicans who goes far away from home to die....

My family once had a white mix breed dog named Tippy. She was part of the family and my earliest memories were playing with her. She had been born about the same time I had been born in 1948 and in the winter of 1965 when I was senior in high school Tippy disappeared. This dog had never done this before. She was always to found in the dining room in the morning where the family had breakfast; however, this morning Tippy was nowhere to be seen around the house. My brother remembered letting her out during the night for a bathroom break but he’d went back to sleep and didn’t recall letting her back in the house. A search was immediately launched and the family hopped in the car with dad at the wheel. About half an hour later we found Tippy dead at the side of Route#7 near Proctorville, Ohio several miles from our home in Rome.. A delivery truck was parked by the side of the road and the driver stood by the body. He said to my dad as we approached Tippy in tears, “Was this your dog, mister?”

My dad said through his tears, “Yes, this was our Tippy. She was 17 years old.” The driver and my dad looked on in silent as my mother and I rolled her body into Tippy’s body into favorite car blanket.”I want you to know there was nothing I could do. The dog literally ran in front of my truck like she wanted to die. If it had been a person, I’d call it suicide. Even so, I hate to be responsible for your dog dying. I’m a dog lover and have an old hound I love dearly.” Dad told the driver he believed him and he thanked him for stopping, as many drivers wouldn’t have cared enough to stop and see what they’d hit. When Tippy was wrapped up mom took her back to the car and laid her body on the front seat where she loved to ride in the car with her head out the open window. Dad said goodbye to the truck driver and drove the miles back home in silence – Dad at the wheel with Tippy by his side and the three of us in the back.

When we arrived back home Mom took Tippy’s body into the kitchen by the door where he bed was and laid in it for the last time. Dad called in sick and mom called brother and I sick to the different schools we attended. Then we went into the living room and told one another our favorite Tippy story. It started to snow and dad related how Tippy loved the snow when she was a puppy but came to hate when she became older. “Why dog would hold it in until a bare patch appeared in the yard, or until I shoveled a place for her to go.” We looked through the family album at picture after picture and discovered dozens with Tippy in them – Tippy at my fifth birthday party and Tippy at my brother’s sixth birthday just last week. We looked at pictures of Tippy with Oscar the Siamese cat who she came to adopt as her own since couldn’t have puppies; Tippy in Florida at Cocoa Beach during a family vacation; Tippy with the family on vacation with the family in another summer in Michigan and Canada; Tippy with dad watching as Huntington, West Virginia National Guard troops return home from Korea in the summer of 1953.; Tippy at Christmas after Christmas waiting patiently for her traditional present of a butcher’s bone.

After several hours dad and I prepared Tippy’s grave. The snow had stopped after only several inches and the ground wasn’t frozen. Dad and I dug a nice grave about three feet deep. When we were finished mom came carrying Tippy in her arms and brother all her toys and her bed. She handed Tippy to my dad who gently placed everything in the grave with Tippy in her bed. Then he led us in a short prayer. Mom threw a handful of dirt into the grave and dad filled it in as we returned to the house chased by cold north wind. Later we sat in the kitchen with hot cups of cocoa before us in silence and watched the snow fall through the picture window that framed a tiny cross in a field of white snow.

The next spring mom took the cross down and planted a tree. The family was moving to Florida and the brick ranch style home was being sold to her owners who very likely would not respect a dog’s grave in their back yard. Mom selected a dog wood tree from the nursery and placed it over the grave. Dad said, “Honey do you really think that little seedling will survive in this soil? We have planted six seedlings here already and none have lived.” Mom smiled, “But this will be a Tippy Dogwood Tree. : a very special tree; it will live and grow big to be a thing of beauty.”

The family moved to Florida that summer where they all died over the years. Florida became our new adopted homeland – a place where we always returned – and Rome, Ohio became a distant memory and forgotten by the family except for me. I returned briefly in the summer of 1991 after the death of my wife. I easily found the brick ranch home on its acre in subdivision that had been a farm. I pulled into the driveway and knocked on the door. I noticed the owners had taken excellent care of it and looked as new as the day we moved in 1965. The door opened and remembered the woman – she was the woman who purchased the home from my parents, a lifelong single woman and high school teacher. I introduced myself and she remembered me from her Ohio history class and being one of the boys who had lived here. “Ronnie Barbour? Right? I never forget a student. You were in my 10th grade class in the 60s?” “Yes, I said, “And you are Miss Daniels. I never forget a good teacher. Also, you bought this house from my parents Jean and Claude in 1966. I am most impressed with the way you have kept up the place.” Miss Daniel laughs, “Dear it’s a new house! The old one burnt down to the ground. The wiring went bad and started a fire. It was at night and I’m a sound sleeper, especially after grading homework. I would have died in my bed if it hadn’t been for that dog barking outside my window. It was a white dog that ran away as soon as my cat and I jumped out the bedroom window. I owe that dog my life! It must have been a stray because no one around here owns a small white dog.” “Very strange, “ I agree.

Miss Daniels continues after inviting me to the kitchen for coffee, “I had the house rebuilt exactly like it was before in 1966 without the addition I added. So what brings you back to Ohio?” “I wanted to see Tippy’s grave.” I said pointing to the dogwood tree framed by the large picture window.” “I hope Tippy wasn’t a human being,” said Miss Daniels, “You may have explaining to do if it was.” “No,” I say Tippy was the family dog of questionable breeding that lived to be 17 years old and is buried under your dogwood tree.” “Do you have a picture of her?” asks Miss Daniels, I pull out my wallet, “This is one of Tippy in this backyard.” “Oh my God!” shouts Miss Daniels – “This was the dog that saved me from the fire!” Until this moment I never believed in ghosts. Now I do. Could I have this picture? I’ll have a copy made and send you the original.” “No, keep it,” I say, “I have dozens of Tippy pictures at home.”

We finish our coffee and go out the backdoor and walk up to the dogwood tree. “Let me guess: You were never able to get any other tree to know in this yard.” “This is true,” she said and added, “The nursery people say it's something to do with the soil. They couldn’t figure out why the dogwood survived.” “I think we both know why, Miss Daniels, Tippy never really died, she just changed form and stood guard over the family in the house.” Miss Daniel wipes away a tear, “I’ve always rejected mysticism but I can’t think of a better explanation. I know I’ve always felt at peace and happy since moving here after a very unhappy romance. I guess we’ll call it, The Tippy Effect -- Love that doesn't end with death.”