August 4, 2005
Alone At Last
Jill Brooks, INtake columnist

I love living alone. It’s been well over 10 years since I had a roommate, and the cliché about getting stuck in my ways is relevant.

The last roommate I had, however, was a gem. I found her in the “classifieds,” and after interviewing two other frighteningly odd women, I chose correctly.

We met at her Broad Ripple rental; she was kind and bubbly and greeted me with two large, happy dogs trailing behind her. I wondered what on earth she thought of me wearing a thick headband, which partially covered my forehead.

The day before, feeling adventurous, and shirking responsibility in whatever sales job I had then, I stopped at a rinky-dink hair salon and said, “I have an hour to kill…highlight my bangs.” The woman who approached me, an octogenarian, should have been my first clue to run back to the office. When she asked me how to mix highlights I knew we were both in trouble.

She spot bleached the front of my hair white and I left in tears, looking something like Cruella DeVille.

My new roommate didn’t mind, however, and move in I did. We became great friends. We survived a few boyfriends together, and I was eventually in her wedding. Her dogs, i.e. her babies, were in the wedding party too.

Except for a former boyfriend who treated his cats wonderfully, I’d never witnessed a better pet owner than her. At least once a month she’d come flying in the house asking for my help catching a neighborhood stray: dogs, cats, dirty, flea-ridden, she never discriminated.

She once housed a lost Dalmatian puppy that couldn’t walk because he’d scratched his paws raw. She cried when the owners came for him (they didn’t even thank her). We had proper burials in the yard for dead birds she’d find, and she’d laugh at her own dogs, always by her side, like they were all involved in an inside joke.

I marveled at her joy and compassion, always putting animals first.

Her oldest dog died of cancer a few weeks ago. My friend and her husband took their dog on one last walk, letting her lie in the cool water of White River, her favorite place, then said their goodbyes under a tree.

Tragically, her second dog died three weeks later, of a broken heart.

Losing an animal is so difficult, but through their emptiness and grief, I am warmed knowing that two other stray dogs will soon be in for the home of their lives.