The Pocket Mirror: Ruby makes Comet brave

“I do not want to be the big looking glass of civilization but just the little pocket mirror of everyday life.” — Peter Altenberg

They are best friends. Ruby and Comet. Ruby is tiny but very brave. Comet is much bigger than Ruby, but he is not so brave. You see, they grew up in different circumstances and that has made all the difference in the world. Ruby was loved from the moment she was born. Comet doesn’t remember when he was born. His memories begin with living in a shopping cart and belonging to a bag lady. When you hear Comet’s story, you will understand why he needs someone like Ruby to be his best friend.

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Comet is a medium-sized dog, mostly brown but speckles of black show up, too. He has a green collar around his neck. He has a shyness about meeting people. (If you’re a dog, you never know how people are going to treat you.) He is almost 10 years old now and he doesn’t like to think about what it was like when he was a puppy. A bag lady found him in an alley and she picked him up and put him in her shopping cart and that was where Comet spent his time, day and night.

At first it wasn’t that bad, but then he began growing and the shopping cart got smaller and smaller while he got bigger and bigger. He had to sort of fold his back legs under him so he could fit in the shopping cart. Sometimes it hurt and when he barked, the bag lady would shush him up. She didn’t want to hear about the shopping cart being too small for a dog.

Comet didn’t know there was anything bigger than the street he and the bag lady lived on. With brick buildings all around. Broken windows in some of them. Even when the sun was shining, the street and the buildings looked dark. Sometimes, the bag lady would disappear for a day or two, leaving Comet in the shopping cart. No food. No water. He could have left, but how would the bag lady find him? He didn’t know anyone but her.

Then one day a man came walking along the street and he saw Comet in the shopping cart with the propped against the wall of a brick building. He came over to the dog who was overflowing the shopping cart and he asked the bag lady if she would sell the little dog to him. She thought for a second before saying yes, but he couldn’t have him for free. She would sell the dog but he had to buy her a drink.

The man agreed to buying the woman a drink and they went to a bar across the street that had a flashing sign that said “COMET.” Then the man walked out of the bar, leaving the bag lady the inside to finish her drink and he took the frightened dog out of the shopping cart and named him Comet. Once out of the shopping cart, his legs felt funny. They weren’t cramped up now. He could stretch them out and at first it hurt but gradually they began to feel better, and so did Comet.

The man took him to an animal shelter. The City of Detroit has a lot of animal shelters but this one wasn’t far from one of the colleges in the city. Comet was put in a cage but it was big enough that he didn’t have to curl his legs up to fit inside. And then something wonderful happened. A volunteer came every week to take him for a walk and with every walk, Comet liked the young man better and better. And apparently the young man liked him, too, because he always asked for Comet.

During their walks, he found out that the young man was a student at the college. He was from Midland and he was going to become a lawyer. It was a family tradition with his father and grandfather and great-grandfather all being lawyers. The young man’s name was Peter. And one day, Peter adopted Comet and took him out of the animal shelter and to his apartment near the college campus.

When Peter went to class, Comet lay on the bed, watching the door to make sure that Peter was coming back.

Peter always came back, and after awhile, Comet forgot about being scared all the time. When Peter graduated from college, he took Comet and they drove to Midland where they would live. Once in Midland, he met two dogs, Ruby and Olive, but they had had a much different life than Comet knew. Sometimes, he told them about what it had been like before he met Peter.

Comet lives in a house now. He has his own bed to sleep in. But he still likes to sleep with Peter on the big bed. Comet’s back legs are very painful and he has to take a special medicine to help. When he goes to lay down on the floor, his back legs sort of flop down because it is so painful. And it’s hard getting up because his back legs don’t have the strength his two front legs have.

But the important thing is that Peter loves Comet and Comet loves Peter. Comet has come home and he knows he will always be with Peter. Comet sees Ruby a lot, and she’s a great comfort to him. Ruby is much smaller than Comet but she makes him feel brave when she’s with him. Once in awhile, they have had to go to a kennel but with Ruby there, Comet knows she will protect him.

It is nice to know that a little dog like Ruby can make a big dog like Comet brave. We all need someone in our life to make us feel brave.

Midland writer Virginia Florey pens a monthly Pocket Mirror column for the Midland Daily News.