Power of Dog

Andrew Marshall

Description

A memoir about getting a first puppy, turning forty and transforming a son and mother's complicated relationship. On the eve of the millenium, the life of therapist and best-selling self-help author Andrew Marshall was in a dark place.The counselling that he recommended to everybody else had not shifted the grief from the death of his much-loved partner - despite trying three different therapists.His career as journalist had reached a dead end. He was struggling with low-level depression and his polite but distant relationship with his mother had left them both tip-toeing round each other.His Solution? To get Flash, a collie cross puppy - perhaps not the best choice for someone who'd never owned a dog, or even lived with one, before. In this funny and moving memoir, Marshall chronicles not only the ups and downs of training an excitable puppy but how Flash brings back his childhood fear of wolves and the unresolved issues with his parents.Slowly but surely, by looking though Flash's eyes, Marshall starts to laugh again, fall in love with the Sussex countryside and heal old wounds with his mother.At the climax of Flash's puppy years, he gives him enough confidence to take a real-life wolf for a walk. And in the final section of Marshall's diary, Flash still has one last lesson to teach him.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: RedDoor Publishing
• Date de parution: 12 juillet 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781910453964
• Langue: English

Extrait

‘I was touched by this journey from loss and separation, through grief and pain to a place of truth, love and acceptance. A story of sadness and joy which could just as easily be entitled The Power of Love ’
Kathy Gore OBE DL, chair of Friends of Sussex Hospices
‘This is a wonderful memoir that is funny, moving, and ultimately life affirming. It addresses emotional wounding and male depression in ways that millions of us can understand and relate to. Andrew might be writing about dogs, but his real topic is how to find the courage to open up to love again’
Jed Diamond, psychotherapist and author, My Distant Dad: Healing the Family Father Wound and Surviving Male Menopause: A Guide for Women and Men
The Power of Dog
How a puppy helped heal a grieving heart
ANDREW MARSHALL
Published by RedDoor www.reddoorpublishing.com
© 2018 Andrew Marshall
The right of Andrew Marshall to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the author
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Cover design: Emma Graves
Typesetting: Tutis Innovative E-Solutions Pte. Ltd
To Ignacio
‘Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least you learn something, in which case it's no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing.’
Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
BEFORE
What I wanted most and what frightened me most, when I was a child, turned out to be the same thing. Every year as I blew out my birthday cake candles, I’d wish for a puppy ‒ with my eyes tightly closed to maximise the magic. But while my daydreams were full of adoring Labradors fetching sticks, my nightmares were stalked by their distant relatives: wolves.
My parents belonged to the ‘comfortably off’ middle classes and were only too happy to pay for tennis lessons, new bikes and summer camp – indeed they were particularly keen to send me to these. My birthday cake was always home baked, a fruit cake decorated with teddy bears sitting in a spiky snow scene. Despite the growing number of candles and my entreaties, the gods of birthday wishes were unmoved. Although my mother agreed first to guinea pigs and later mice, she remained firm about getting a dog: ‘I’ll be the one who ends up walking it.’
I can pinpoint the exact moment the nightmares started. Our next-door neighbours, whom I’d christened H’auntie and H’uncle, had retired to Bournemouth and one summer we stayed overnight at their house. I must have been four or five and already possessed a vivid imagination. In the middle of the night, I had to tiptoe across an unfamiliar landing to the lavatory ‒ never toilet because my mother considered the term vulgar. Returning, I closed the bedroom door as quietly as possible and revealed a large hairy wolf ready to pounce. I can’t remember if I screamed or whether anybody came. Maybe my mother pointed out that the wolf was really a man’s woollen winter dressing gown hanging on a hook; all of those details have been forgotten but I can still remember the nightmares.
Back home in Northampton, I slept in a tall wooden bed which had originally belonged to my father. The mattress and the springs were so old that they had sunk to form a hollow which fitted exactly around my small body. I felt safe nestling between the two hills on either side. However, the old-fashioned design left a large amount of space under the bed. By day, this space housed a box of favourite toys, but at night I never had the nerve to lift the white candlewick counterpane. I instinctively knew the wolves had set up camp there. The rules of engagement were simple: I was safe in bed, but they could pounce and catch me if I didn’t run fast enough back from the loo ‒ an acceptable abbreviation. On particularly dark nights, the wolves would emerge from their lair and dance round the room with their teeth glinting in the moonlight. I’d scream out and Mummy would come and reassure me:
‘The wolves will not get you.’
She would lift the counterpane and show me.
‘There’s nothing there.’
It was easy for her to say – the wolves would disappear as soon as she’d open my bedroom door. But after she’d told me to ‘sleep tight’ and gone back to bed, they would rematerialise, slink back into the lair and an uneasy truce would be established.
Wolves did not have a monopoly on my fears. For a while in the sixties a ‘cop killer’ called Harry Roberts evaded the police by haunting my nightmares. If there was a strange-looking man drinking alone at the rugby club bar ‒ where my father was treasurer ‒ I would sidle up to one of my parents and whisper: ‘THERE’S HARRY ROBERTS.’ It must have been embarrassing for my parents, but in defence of my seven-year-old self, the rugby club did attract an odd crowd.
Fortunately, my fear of Harry Roberts was easy to cure. One night in 1966, I was allowed to stay up late to watch his capture on the news. I can still picture the small makeshift camp in the woods ‒ the blanket strung between three trees and the discarded tin cans ‒ but not where (except it was many miles from my home). I slept soundly that night.
Flushed by her success with Harry Roberts, my mother took me to London Zoo. I was softened up with lions, monkeys and possibly even a ride on an elephant. Next, she casually mentioned that they had wolves too. I can’t remember what I was wearing but I can picture myself in an anorak so large it came down past my knees ‒ ‘you’ll grow into it’ – being taken to an enclosure hidden in some back alley of the Zoo. Did I actually look at the wolves? Perhaps I refused. Perhaps they were asleep in their den. Whatever happened next, the pack under my bed would not be exorcised so easily.
At that age it was impossible to believe I would ever reach ten; but I did. I even turned eighteen and left home for university, where I studied Politics and Sociology. After graduating, I got a job first at BRMB Radio in Birmingham (in the newsroom) and then Essex Radio in Southend (as a presenter and producer) and Radio Mercury in Crawley (where I rose to become deputy programme controller). My nightmares about wolves had long since ended, but if they appeared on TV they would still make me feel uneasy and I would switch channels. I still wanted a dog, but I was far too practical. I had a career to pursue. Who would walk the dog? Would it be fair to leave it alone while I worked? I couldn’t be tied down by such responsibilities.
At thirty, I fell in love with Thom and we talked about getting a dog together. However, for the first four and a half years, he lived in Germany and I lived in Hurstpierpoint (a small Sussex village). In the spring of 1995, Thom finally moved over to England with plans to set up an interior design company. However, six months later, he fell ill. All our plans for dog-owning were put on hold, while we concentrated on getting him better. He spent months in hospital first in England and then in Germany and I spent a lot of time flying backwards and forwards between the two countries. I loved Thom with a passion that sometimes terrified me, so when he died, on 9 March 1997, I was completely inconsolable.
I moved into the office he’d created in our spare room, but I couldn’t stop the computer from still sending faxes from Andrew Marshall and Thom Hartwig. As far as Microsoft Word was concerned, he was immortal. I tried various strategies to cope with my bereavement but three different counsellors did not shift it. Two short-term relationships made me feel worse, not better. I had just turned forty. My regular sources of income – being Agony Uncle for Live TV and writing a column for the Independent newspaper – were both terminated. My grief was further isolating me and many of Thom and my couple friendships had just withered away.
Approaching the Millennium, something had to change but what?
P ART O NE
The Puppy Years
Wednesday 22 December 1999
Yesterday, I flew to Germany for Thom’s father’s eightieth birthday celebrations. Over the past two and a half years, I’ve been over three times to visit his parents and his mother regularly calls to check how I’m doing. We’ve tried to look after each other and it certainly helps me to talk to people who loved Thom and miss him as much as I do.
Erwin was thrilled that I could make his birthday supper and despite having to retire somewhere quiet for a weep, I was pleased to be there too. Looking round the family lunch table at Thom’s parents, brother, nephews, aunts and uncles, I felt a warm glow which could not entirely be put down to the champagne, venison and strudel. Despite our different cultures and my shaky German, I felt truly included. But I couldn’t help feeling, without Thom beside me, I no longer truly belonged to this family. As I said my goodbyes, Ursula hugged me and pulled me closer:
‘Don’t be alone.’
If an elderly woman, so crippled with arthritis that she can barely leave her apartment, could move on ‒ what is holding me back?

I have been staying with Jürgen and Gabi, Thom’s brother and sister-in-law, just outside Frankfurt. Jürgen had to work and Gabi was busy preparing for Christmas Eve, Germany’s main focus of the celebrations. Rather than being in the way, I decided to visit the city’s modern art gallery. I borrowed a map, was given detailed instructions on how to navigate their train system and wrapped myself up against the gathering winter gloom.
Everything started fine. Line 8 ‒ direction of Wiesbaden ‒ arrived punctually. What else would you expect in Germany? However, once inside the carriage, I wa