What the Bull Taught Me

The morning sun warmed my porch as I sat in my grandmother's rocking chair, now mine. Bartholomew, my golden retriever, rested his graying muzzle on my knee. At eighty-two, I've learned that the best teachers often have four legs.

I thought back to 1952, to my grandfather's Iowa farm. The neighbors called him Old Bess, a massive Holstein bull with shoulders like a draft horse and temper to match. Everyone warned me away. "Stay clear of the bull," they'd say, "he's got no use for anyone."

But I was twelve, and twelve-year-olds have their own wisdom. I started bringing him apples from the orchard, then sitting at the fence, talking about school and dreams I barely understood. By summer's end, I was leaning against the fence while he grazed nearby, a quiet companionship that needed no words.

"He's not mean," I told my grandfather once. "He's just particular."

Grandpa had laughed. "Maybe he found himself a friend."

That bull taught me something about friendship I've carried through seven decades: it arrives unbidden, often unexpectedly, between souls who recognize something familiar in each other. He lived to be eighteen, and I sat with him until the end, my hand on his massive shoulder, knowing he'd understood me better than most people ever would.

Now, as Bartholomew sighed in his sleep, I scratched behind his ears. My daughter wants me to move to assisted living. "What about the dog?" I'd asked, and she'd waved it off like a detail.

Some things aren't details. They're the punctuation marks in a life's sentence, the commas and periods that give it meaning. The bull who listened. The dog who stays. The friend who, despite species or circumstance, chooses you.

I patted Bartholomew's shoulder, much smaller than Old Bess's but just as faithful. "We're not going anywhere," I told him. "Some friendships deserve to finish what they started."

He opened one eye, thumped his tail twice, and closed it again. Wise old dog.