‘The Voice’

By Ray Rebmann, Clermont. The Rebmann family raised nine puppies for the Seeing Eye guide dog program. One of those, Heidi, was especially vocal. She served as the inspiration for this story. Rebmann authored “How Can You Give up That Adorable Puppy” (Unlimited Publishing) which tells the story of the family’s experiences with the dogs.
“That dog’s sure to fail,” Mom pronounced, shaking her head in a way that clearly expressed disapproval of Becky’s training efforts with the puppy.
Like teaching Heidi how to sing.
The guide dog program had assigned Heidi to the family for initial training 15 months earlier. The puppy had arrived as a cuddly 8-week-old fur ball black Lab/Golden Retriever mix. Perfect in every way, except one.
She displayed a marked propensity toward whining.
Whined when she was hungry. Whined when she was tired. Whined when she was left alone. Whined when she needed to go out. Whined some more when she wanted to get back indoors.
Heidi even whined in her sleep.
The family tried everything the guide dog program recommended to break the habit. When none of that advice worked, they researched on their own… books, dog training websites, celebrity dog handler videos. Heidi’s whine failed to tone down to a whisper.
Becky decided to embrace Heidi’s quirk.
“I’ve taught her how to sing,” she announced to anyone who asked. “It’s not whining, it’s singing.”
Heidi possessed a beauty of a whine, able to leap or tumble several octaves in one exhale.
Once Becky decided to treat Heidi as a specially-gifted prodigy, she experimented with various musical styles, rock, country, soul, rap. Heidi mastered them quickly, whining along in tune without regard to whether the song was a ballad or searing rock guitar solo or required her to match whine for rhyme with Snoop Dog.
She then showed the flexibility of her range by whining through a six-minute Miles Davis trumpet solo from his “Bitches Brew” album.
But she really let it go when she performed Christmas music. Especially the old-time carols. “Silent Night” became her show stopper. Becky polished the dust off her piano keys and performed duets with the pup.
The family learned shortly after the holidays that the pup would be returning to the guide dog program to complete her formal training before being assigned to a blind partner.
“She’ll never make it,” mom insisted. The family was convinced that Heidi’s musical tendencies would be too great a distraction to overcome for her to be of much value as a guide dog.
The family was wrong.
*****
Garrett had never wanted a dog. Not before, and certainly not now.
Garrett’s life divided sharply that way, “before and now”.
The Now had begun, dramatically, a little over a year earlier, with a single incident involving an automobile.
He’d been driving. More relevant to his circumstances, he’d been drinking, then driving.
No, that isn’t right. The other driver had been drinking and driving. Garrett had consumed one glass of wine at his wife’s family’s annual Christmas party. He’d made sure of that, being designated driver for the evening.
He’d played the piano, his pregnant wife attendant on the stool beside him, turning the sheet music while everyone else gathered ‘round to sing Christmas songs. A huge tree, bristling with colored lights and tinsel, glowed benevolently over the scene.
“Very Norman Rockwell scene,” he recalled bitterly for the thousandth time.
He hadn’t touched a piano key since.
In the version of the event he’d created, Garrett immersed himself in guilt, assuming blame for all that had happened.
There had been no dramatic build-up before the accident. The climactic moment had been marked by a solitary ear-piercing scream at the instant of impact. It was over in a flash of blinding light.
His wife hadn’t reacted, sitting beside him in the front seat. She didn’t moved, didn’t make a sound.
But Garrett heard a single pure note coming from his wife’s stomach, her womb. A sigh.
Hearing that sound, Garrett understood he’d relive this moment over and over, presumably through his eternity.
He relived it again, now, as he turned down a dark side street, his guide dog leading him away from human activity, as she always did, avoiding the bustling main street with its taverns and shops alive with festive holiday doings.
Garrett was young in years, but the incident of a year ago had aged him and he shuffled stoop-shouldered down the dark narrow alley.
The court had exonerated him of any wrongdoing. So had the family.
But he’d been insistent about punishing himself.
“After all,” he reasoned, “God had punished him.”
By making him blind.
Garrett’s persistence in blaming himself eventually caused those around him to treat him like he was guilty. People shunned him as completely as he shunned them.
Even in the crowded street of the city, he’d isolated himself until the only voice he heard was that solitary sigh. That voice, he recognized, as belonging to his unborn child.
The voice spoke to him directly as he and his guide dog navigated lonely streets each night; the voice asking its insistent question: Why?
*****
Garrett hadn’t wanted a dog, not as a guide, certainly not as a companion.
“I prefer to lose myself in my darkness,” he’d told the court-appointed counselor during one of their more productive sessions.
Productive at least from the counselor’s perspective because it had ended with Garrett reluctantly agreeing to give a guide dog “a try.”
“At least you won’t have to worry about it trying to talk to you,” the counselor replied, barely concealing her frustration with Garrett.
But she’d been right. Heidi was the perfect companion for Garrett. Never a sound out of her.
Garrett’s usual gloom had darkened considerably in the days leading up to Christmas.
“Chalk it up to the holidays,” he decided.
“Tis the season blah blah blah,” he almost sang, his voice dripping mockery.
“For everybody but me…”
The dog Heidi paused at a street corner waiting for a delivery truck to pass before leading Garrett across. She offered no comment to his observation.
Having even less enthusiasm than usual to contact humanity, Garrett had sought the most deserted streets, wandering homeward. Man and dog traversed increasingly unfamiliar alleys until Heidi hesitated, uncertain which way to go.
She stood at the corner waiting long after the truck had passed.
“Oh look, mommy, a doggie,” a young girl’s voice suddenly interrupted the silence.
Garrett had not sensed her presence. The child had materialized out of the shadows and now bent over the dog, petting her head. Garrett felt the enthusiastic thwap of Heidi’s tail against his leg as the child stroked the dog’s back.
Garrett was about to gruffly warn her off when a woman’s voice called to the child from an indeterminate distance.
“I just wanted to wish her Merry Christmas, mommy,” the child protested. “Heidi looks so sad, mommy.”
“Why?”
Garrett froze.
That voice asking that particular question.
And how had the girl known the dog’s name? There hadn’t been sufficient time or light for her to read the name tag.
The dog looked long and hard into Garrett’s unseeing eyes and made a decision.
Garrett didn’t move when Heidi determined to drag him across the street.
Why? Wouldn’t move. Why? Couldn’t move. Why? No longer wanted to move.
Heidi managed to pull Garrett through the intersection. Then she turned and headed in the opposite direction than Garrett originally intended…toward a big light on Main Street.
*****
Ferguson and Piazza had been “volunteered” to serve as door ushers for the midnight service. Ferguson didn’t want to be there, having other urgent business to attend to.
“Santy Claus got my kid a seven-room dollhouse, complete with indoor plumbin’…running water ‘n all,” he complained to Piazza.
“Only I’m the contractor who’s got the job of puttin’ it all together before mornin’.”
Piazza was about to offer a comment that was not strictly in keeping with the loving spirit of the season, when he was interrupted by a scratching sound at the door.
“What have we here,” he chuckled, watching Heidi lead Garrett into the church. The blind guy moved like he was under some kind of spell, Piazza thought.
“No dogs allowed, pal,” Ferguson snapped. “Father don’t take kindly to barking during his sermons.”
He relented when he realized that Heidi was a working dog, “on the job.”
Garrett knew where he was and didn’t want to be there. But he felt so exhausted that he slumped into a seat at the end of the back pew. Heidi curled up at his feet, her eyes intently watching his out-of-focus face.
Still hearing that insistent question, Garrett ignored the whispered droning of people around him.
He squeezed his eyes tight and concentrated on the voice, why what?
Not blocking it for the first time, he heard the question in its entirety.
“Why blame yourself?”
“I am guilty,” he responded aloud, not caring who heard.
“Why suffer?”
“I am guilty,” he repeated.
“Why not seek…”
“There is no forgiveness…”
“Of course there is. On this night of nights…why do you not ask?”
Garrett’s sobbing caused Heidi to whimper softly as she rested her head on his lap. The sounds also drew the attention of the ushers, who warily approached the pew.
A voice crackling over a loudspeaker from the front of the church interrupted them all.
“Are there any musicians in the congregation this evening? Our regular pianist has suddenly taken ill. We sure could use some help.”
Heidi whimpered louder, causing Garrett to focus on the dog.
“What is it, girl?” he asked. Heidi wagged her tail, nudging Garrett to his feet.
“I play,” he stammered, surprised at himself.
The ushers stepped toward Garrett, now to direct him to a piano in the front of the church. The piano was surrounded by a circle of candles. The ushers needn’t have bothered. Heidi had led Garrett half way down the aisle in that direction by the time the pair moved.
“I’m a little out of practice,” Garrett said as he stretched and cracked his fingers to loosen them.
“No matter…start with an oldie but goodie,” the voice over the loudspeaker said cheerfully.
“Silent Night.”
The congregation joined in singing as Garrett played the song, his fingers nimbly dancing across the keys, his playing growing in power and intensity as he remembered truly, then reaching the chorus…
“Sleep in heavenly peace…” Garrett heard a loud crystal clear note rise up from the floor beside him and he instantly recognized the voice.
“Heidi,” he said, his face beaming, shining brighter than all the candles around him, his smile flashing like a star in the heavens.