by Noelle Leslie de la Cruz. Dr. Leslie de la Cruz was Editor in Chief in 1998. She is an Associate Professor in the Philosophy department.
Recently, our housekeeper, Ate Dalen, visited her hometown of Quezon and discovered that her stepson had lost one of her dogs. Spike, as the dog was called, followed the boy to another village, but upon arrival, he’d neglected to secure him. So the creature wandered around for several days, exhausted and starving. Fortunately, he was eventually found and returned to Ate Dalen.
When I first heard this story, I couldn’t help but clutch my golden retriever, Max. Max enjoys Ate Dalen’s round-the-clock care, as compared to her two dogs back in Quezon. Her husband jokes, half-seriously, that Max gets more attention than her own pets. I suppose their situation is not unlike that of the children and other loved ones of Filipino overseas workers, those who leave their own so they could serve or take care of others. (If I am comparing humans to animals, why not? There could be worse analogies; and when it comes to love, surely it transcends species.) Max is one spoiled pet. But I can’t think of another who’s more deserving; this dog is pure love.
It’s not just his nature. Golden retrievers seem to have been bred to be a rolling ball of tongue-lolling good cheer. His greatest ambition is to play all day, or for you to rub his belly. Approach him, and he’d automatically lie down, expecting a caress. He’s the one being who’s always ecstatic to see me, regardless of the time of day or my mood. His food and medical bills may cost a lot, and he’s probably the last dog I’ll keep after Ate Dalen leaves us for good, but he’s worth all of it.
He is pure love because of what he brings out of you. I can’t say I’m like his mother—Ate Dalen fulfills that role, the one who feeds, bathes, and disciplines him. I’m more like, say, his “father,” paying for his maintenance and spending leisure moments with him. Being the only one in our household who drives, I get to walk him during weekends or even weekdays when I have no classes.
I don’t suppose keeping a dog is any sort of training for having a child. But it’s good training for being human. This term, I’m co-teaching a Great Works course on the theme of animals, and in class I discuss Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning comic book, Maus. It depicts the experiences of his father, a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. What’s striking about the work, aside from the fact that it employs an unlikely medium to tell the tale of the ineffable, is its use of animals as a metaphor for races. Jews are portrayed as mice, Germans as cats, Americans as dogs, Poles as pigs, the French as frogs, and so on. But despite these depictions, you get the sense that it is really humans who are suffering. There is something in all of us that cannot be erased, not even by fire or genocide or evil: a Presence that demands to be recognized. Beneath the animal clothing we all wear, there must be something like a soul.
Now I don’t deny that I feel for canine souls as much as for human ones. I tend to worry about lost dogs (having lost one when I was a child) as much as about kids who weave through the traffic, begging for coins. What else can you do but roll down your window, and drop some money onto their waiting palms? It’s not enough to buy them a college education. But my own pet, I can actually “save,” or he makes me feel like a savior.
Sometimes I imagine myself outgrowing my selfishness, and actually being wholly responsible for another being, I think about adopting a child. I’m not averse to having my own, but if I had a choice, I’d rather take care of an existing being. I’m not sure about the ethics of bringing another person into this world of suffering. Or am I more effective as an educator, nurturing minds and hearts from inside a classroom?
This is what I’ve learned from Max. Contrary to the romantic, or even religious, notion that love is difficult, complex, problematic, or sacrificial, it is actually easy. It’s the easiest thing in the universe, so effortless it performs itself. You wonder why more people don’t do it, more often. It’s all you will ever want to do, for the rest of the time you have here.
