How a puppy saved my grieving family

FOR YEARS, WHENEVER OUR CHILDREN ASKED US IF WE could get a dog, my husband and I had some vague and only slightly encouraging go-to responses, such as, “Someday?” and “Maybe when you’re old enough to help.” Then came 2020, the year of our pandemic dread. Sometime between my mother’s livestreamed funeral in the spring and back-to-school that never quite happened in the fall, “maybe” gave way to “yes” and “someday” became “as soon as possible.”

Saying yes to the dog was very much about saying yes to our kids in the worst year of their lives. They had lost so much with and during the pandemic—their grandma, their great-grandma, their school routines, the ability to spend time with friends and family. Like parents everywhere, my husband and I have spent the past year fretting about our children. We’ve been doing a lot of wellness checks, probably annoying them with attempts at probing heart-to-hearts, watching them for signs of anxiety and depression. It hasn’t been difficult to drill