"Lassie and Pina" (Text & Image Copyright Wylddane Productions, LLC)
“Some souls come back to us wearing different faces, but loving us in exactly the same way.”
There are some souls who enter our lives so quietly, so naturally, that we do not at first understand we are standing in the presence of something eternal.
The summer Lassie came into my life, the world still felt enormous and mysterious. I was ten years old, living in the Northwoods of Wisconsin then, in that strange country between childhood innocence and the first shadows of growing older. The days smelled of fresh-cut grass, lake water, and sun-warmed sidewalks. Bikes lay abandoned in yards until dusk. Baseball games stretched endlessly beneath amber evening skies. And somewhere in the middle of that bright and ordinary world, there was Lassie.
She was not a collie like the television dog. She was smaller, softer somehow, with silky ears, intelligent eyes, and a white-and-golden coat that shimmered in sunlight like wheat moving in a summer breeze. But to me she was my Lassie, and that was enough.
From the very beginning, we belonged to one another.
She followed me everywhere—not because she had to, but because she chose to. Down dirt paths. Across schoolyards in summer. Into nearby woods where sunlight filtered green through maple leaves. If I climbed a hill, she climbed it beside me. If I sat quietly beneath a tree nursing the bruises of childhood disappointments, she pressed herself against me without a sound, as though she understood the secret ache that sometimes lives inside lonely boys.
And perhaps she did.
At night, when thunderstorms rolled across Wisconsin skies and rain lashed against the windows, she slept beside my bed. Sometimes I would reach down into darkness just to feel the reassuring softness of her fur. The instant my hand touched her, her tail would thump gently against the floor. I’m here, that sound always said.
Years passed the way years always do—silently at first, then all at once.
The seasons changed. Childhood faded. Friends drifted away like leaves on rivers. The world widened.
But through all of it, Lassie remained.
She was there for first heartbreaks and family sorrows. There for lonely afternoons when I felt misunderstood by nearly everyone else in the world. There during those uncertain teenage years when emotions become storms no one teaches you how to navigate.
She never asked questions.
She simply loved.
And then one autumn morning, when the trees had just begun to burn gold and crimson, she was gone.
There are griefs people speak of politely, almost ceremonially. And then there are griefs that take up residence inside the soul.
Losing Lassie was the first time I understood that love could leave an emptiness behind so vast it echoes.
For weeks afterward, I still listened for the click of her nails against the kitchen floor. I still expected to see her waiting at the door when I came home. Sometimes, half asleep, I could have sworn I felt the weight of her beside the bed.
But life moves relentlessly forward.
Eventually adulthood arrived in full. I moved away from Wisconsin. The lakes and snowfalls of my childhood gave way to the rolling hills and sunlight of California. I built a different life in the San Francisco Bay Area—a life of work, responsibilities, friendships, dinner parties, traffic, deadlines, and all the complicated machinery of growing older.
And yet, every now and then, usually in quiet moments, I would think of her.
Not with sadness anymore.
With longing.
Then came Pina.
Dear friends of mine had adopted a puppy—a tiny thing with bright eyes and feathery ears and enough energy to power the moon. The day I first walked through their door, she came tearing across the room toward me like a bolt of living joy.
Then she stopped.
For one suspended second, the world itself seemed to pause.
She stared directly into my eyes.
Not at me.
Into me.
Her little tail began wagging so hard her entire body twisted sideways. Then she erupted into delighted barking and started running in frantic circles around my legs as though she had been waiting years for me to arrive.
Everyone laughed.
But I couldn’t.
Because somewhere deep inside me, something ancient and wordless had just awakened.
I knelt down slowly.
“Well hello there,” I whispered.
Pina pressed herself against my chest with such fierce affection that it stole the breath from me.
And in that impossible, unreasonable, magical moment, I knew.
Not with logic.
Not with evidence.
With the heart.
Somehow, impossibly, my Lassie had found me again.
Oh, I know how such things sound in the practical daylight of the world. People explain them away. Coincidence. Projection. Emotion. Memory. The human need to reconnect what time has torn apart.
Perhaps.
But there are mysteries in this life that do not fit neatly into language.
Pina and I became inseparable. Whenever I visited, she would explode into joyous chaos the instant she heard my voice. She barked happiness. Spun in circles of pure delight. Climbed into my lap as though no distance or time had ever existed between us.
And always there was that look in her eyes.
Recognition.
As though somewhere behind those dark, shining pupils lived the memory of summer evenings long ago beside lakes and thunderstorms and little boys afraid of growing up.
Then, cruelly, heartbreak returned.
Before she was even a year old, Pina died unexpectedly.
The news struck with the same terrible disbelief as losing Lassie all over again. It seemed impossibly unfair that something so bright, so loving, so filled with joy could vanish so quickly.
For days afterward, I walked through my routines carrying that familiar ache once more.
And yet...
Not entirely grief.
Because by then I understood something I had not understood as a child.
Love does not disappear.
Not really.
It changes shape perhaps. Changes form. Changes seasons.
But certain souls remain woven into us forever.
Years later, when I read A Dog's Purpose, I understood immediately why so many people wept while reading it. The story was fantasy to some readers.
To me, it felt like memory.
Even now, sometimes, I will catch sight of a small golden dog running across a field or hear the happy bark of a puppy somewhere in the distance, and for the briefest instant the years fall away.
I am ten years old again.
The world is still filled with wonder.
And somewhere nearby, just beyond the edge of sight, a faithful heart is still running toward me.
~Wylddane
There are some souls who enter our lives so quietly, so naturally, that we do not at first understand we are standing in the presence of something eternal.
The summer Lassie came into my life, the world still felt enormous and mysterious. I was ten years old, living in the Northwoods of Wisconsin then, in that strange country between childhood innocence and the first shadows of growing older. The days smelled of fresh-cut grass, lake water, and sun-warmed sidewalks. Bikes lay abandoned in yards until dusk. Baseball games stretched endlessly beneath amber evening skies. And somewhere in the middle of that bright and ordinary world, there was Lassie.
She was not a collie like the television dog. She was smaller, softer somehow, with silky ears, intelligent eyes, and a white-and-golden coat that shimmered in sunlight like wheat moving in a summer breeze. But to me she was my Lassie, and that was enough.
From the very beginning, we belonged to one another.
She followed me everywhere—not because she had to, but because she chose to. Down dirt paths. Across schoolyards in summer. Into nearby woods where sunlight filtered green through maple leaves. If I climbed a hill, she climbed it beside me. If I sat quietly beneath a tree nursing the bruises of childhood disappointments, she pressed herself against me without a sound, as though she understood the secret ache that sometimes lives inside lonely boys.
And perhaps she did.
At night, when thunderstorms rolled across Wisconsin skies and rain lashed against the windows, she slept beside my bed. Sometimes I would reach down into darkness just to feel the reassuring softness of her fur. The instant my hand touched her, her tail would thump gently against the floor. I’m here, that sound always said.
Years passed the way years always do—silently at first, then all at once.
The seasons changed. Childhood faded. Friends drifted away like leaves on rivers. The world widened.
But through all of it, Lassie remained.
She was there for first heartbreaks and family sorrows. There for lonely afternoons when I felt misunderstood by nearly everyone else in the world. There during those uncertain teenage years when emotions become storms no one teaches you how to navigate.
She never asked questions.
She simply loved.
And then one autumn morning, when the trees had just begun to burn gold and crimson, she was gone.
There are griefs people speak of politely, almost ceremonially. And then there are griefs that take up residence inside the soul.
Losing Lassie was the first time I understood that love could leave an emptiness behind so vast it echoes.
For weeks afterward, I still listened for the click of her nails against the kitchen floor. I still expected to see her waiting at the door when I came home. Sometimes, half asleep, I could have sworn I felt the weight of her beside the bed.
But life moves relentlessly forward.
Eventually adulthood arrived in full. I moved away from Wisconsin. The lakes and snowfalls of my childhood gave way to the rolling hills and sunlight of California. I built a different life in the San Francisco Bay Area—a life of work, responsibilities, friendships, dinner parties, traffic, deadlines, and all the complicated machinery of growing older.
And yet, every now and then, usually in quiet moments, I would think of her.
Not with sadness anymore.
With longing.
Then came Pina.
Dear friends of mine had adopted a puppy—a tiny thing with bright eyes and feathery ears and enough energy to power the moon. The day I first walked through their door, she came tearing across the room toward me like a bolt of living joy.
Then she stopped.
For one suspended second, the world itself seemed to pause.
She stared directly into my eyes.
Not at me.
Into me.
Her little tail began wagging so hard her entire body twisted sideways. Then she erupted into delighted barking and started running in frantic circles around my legs as though she had been waiting years for me to arrive.
Everyone laughed.
But I couldn’t.
Because somewhere deep inside me, something ancient and wordless had just awakened.
I knelt down slowly.
“Well hello there,” I whispered.
Pina pressed herself against my chest with such fierce affection that it stole the breath from me.
And in that impossible, unreasonable, magical moment, I knew.
Not with logic.
Not with evidence.
With the heart.
Somehow, impossibly, my Lassie had found me again.
Oh, I know how such things sound in the practical daylight of the world. People explain them away. Coincidence. Projection. Emotion. Memory. The human need to reconnect what time has torn apart.
Perhaps.
But there are mysteries in this life that do not fit neatly into language.
Pina and I became inseparable. Whenever I visited, she would explode into joyous chaos the instant she heard my voice. She barked happiness. Spun in circles of pure delight. Climbed into my lap as though no distance or time had ever existed between us.
And always there was that look in her eyes.
Recognition.
As though somewhere behind those dark, shining pupils lived the memory of summer evenings long ago beside lakes and thunderstorms and little boys afraid of growing up.
Then, cruelly, heartbreak returned.
Before she was even a year old, Pina died unexpectedly.
The news struck with the same terrible disbelief as losing Lassie all over again. It seemed impossibly unfair that something so bright, so loving, so filled with joy could vanish so quickly.
For days afterward, I walked through my routines carrying that familiar ache once more.
And yet...
Not entirely grief.
Because by then I understood something I had not understood as a child.
Love does not disappear.
Not really.
It changes shape perhaps. Changes form. Changes seasons.
But certain souls remain woven into us forever.
Years later, when I read A Dog's Purpose, I understood immediately why so many people wept while reading it. The story was fantasy to some readers.
To me, it felt like memory.
Even now, sometimes, I will catch sight of a small golden dog running across a field or hear the happy bark of a puppy somewhere in the distance, and for the briefest instant the years fall away.
I am ten years old again.
The world is still filled with wonder.
And somewhere nearby, just beyond the edge of sight, a faithful heart is still running toward me.
~Wylddane
RSS Feed