Year-end missives are a scream

Written by Joe Pisani
Thursday, 22 December 2011 01:00

When I suggested that our family send one of those end-of-year letters with the Christmas cards, I figured everyone would groan, but they didn’t. They screamed.

“Don’t you dare do that!” gasped one daughter on the verge of fainting.

Those annual updates are always a wealth of interesting news, some of it bordering on the scandalous, like “Crystal broke off the engagement and ran away with her yoga instructor” or “Lindsay was sent back to prison again” or “Charlie finally achieved Nirvana and left us for the Dali Lama.”

Sometimes it’s more than we want to know, although I generally read them from the first sentence to the last ... with envy. The promotions, the vacations and the new sports cars make me wonder what I’m doing wrong. Then, there are the tragic events like the deaths, the illnesses and the separations that afflict us all, those day-to-day struggles we endure as part of this journey called life.

A lot can change in a single year. In our home, two daughters found boyfriends, which is an anxiety second only to an IRS audit. Another daughter finally moved out and got her own apartment, which is twice the cost of my mortgage. And another daughter spent her weekends working with Habitat for Humanity.

Best of all, our puppy Bella graduated from obedience school with honors although I suspect she cheated on the final exam because her behavior is questionable, and she recently started raiding the laundry basket, making off with Victoria’s Secret undergarments, which she takes under the bed to chew. This, of course, usually leads to screaming from the female family members.

Truth be told, she’s no longer a puppy. According to the vet, she’s now an adolescent, which explains why she loves Skittles and doggie junk food made in China with artificial bacon flavoring. Even worse, she has a disturbing tendency to hide barbecued rawhide and pizza crust under pillows, and it’s a bit unsettling to wake up in the middle of the night and find your fingers wrapped around a moist piece of half-chewed pig’s ear.

But no one, man or beast, is perfect and she reminds me that we should live and let live.

She’s always excited to see me and immediately jumps on my lap and starts licking my face. When I get out of the shower, she licks my feet dry and curls up beside me on the sofa while I’m reading. Regardless of my flaws and shortcomings, she’s there with affection.

To her credit, Bella has taught us an important lesson, and it has nothing to do with peeing on the wee-wee pad. The lesson is simply, “You are loved.” Her love is indiscriminate and unconditional, sort of like God’s.

At this time of year, everyone needs to feel loved, so borrowing a page from the puppy handbook, we should take a moment to remind the people around us — the lovable ones and the unlovable ones — that they are loved and then lick them a few times to show our affection.

Joe Pisani may be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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