Harvard T-Bone Jones and the Beautiful Privilege of Growing Old Together

There is a photograph somewhere of the dog I thought I would bring home.

His name was Andy.

He had been featured in one of the shelter mailers, and somewhere between the photograph and the drive across Los Angeles, I had already imagined him asleep on my living room floor. By the time I arrived, however, Andy had been adopted.

Instead, I met a long-legged little creature with enormous brown eyes and the wonderfully ridiculous name of Harvard T-Bone Jones.

Harvey for short.

Or, as I have called him for the better part of thirteen years, the Best Buddy of All the Buddies in Buddyland.

Sometimes life has a way of giving us exactly who we need while disguising them as someone we never expected.

Harvey had already spent three years inside a no-kill shelter.

Three years.

Long enough for the concrete floors, endless barking, fluorescent lights, and revolving doors of strangers

to become his entire understanding of the world. Long enough for volunteers to fall hopelessly in love with him because he had somehow managed to keep the gentleness that so many of us lose under far easier circumstances.

He reached toward people with impossibly long legs that seemed almost too large for his little body, stretching them outward with a vulnerability that made him appear to be asking permission to trust one more time.

Then there were those eyes.

Large, warm, impossibly expressive eyes that never seemed to ask for anything except closeness.

I often think our animals arrive carrying lessons we have not yet realized we need.

Each of mine has become a different kind of teacher. Harvey taught me quietly. 

Harvey taught me how to be a buddy.

The kind that sits beside you while you cry over people who have already left.

The kind that curls up nearby while you answer one more difficult email, wonder whether you're making the right decision, or quietly question your own worth.

Harvey never tried to solve any of it.

He simply remained.

If every friend group has a bartender—the one who quietly listens while polishing another glass, never interrupting because they've heard every version of heartbreak imaginable—then Harvey has always been mine.

He has listened to thirteen years of my life without ever offering advice.

Only presence.

And I have come to believe that presence is often the greatest comfort we can give another living being.

That doesn't mean Harvey has always been an angel.

Far from it.

I have jokingly described him for years as 99% love and 1% killer instinct.

During the only dogfight we've ever experienced, Harvey's survival strategy involved running terrified circles around my legs until the leash wrapped around my ankles and took both of us to the ground.

Not exactly the fierce protector.

And yet I have also watched this same gentle little soul hunt geckos with startling precision and corner unsuspecting birds as though some tiny ancient wolf still lived quietly inside him.

We all carry contradictions.

Perhaps that is another reason I have always loved him.

He reminds me that tenderness and instinct can occupy the same body.

Time, however, has a way of sanding away the sharp edges of every life.

Harvey is sixteen now.

His once-dark face has faded into soft silver.

The veterinarians no longer feel comfortable cleaning his teeth. Yes, even the non-anesthetic kind. 

He no longer burrows beneath the blankets beside me at night. Instead, he sleeps in the living room, where three different beds have slowly appeared because I keep hoping one of them will be exactly right.

His world has become smaller.

At various times of the day he walks in circles, sometimes sideways like a crab. 

Then he stops and stares into space as though he has momentarily forgotten where his body ends, and the room begins.

The back door can stand wide open, sunlight pouring across the threshold, and still he will stop a foot away before quietly relieving himself where he stands.

There are puddles to clean now. 

Some mornings, it takes longer because small paws have tracked through the puddles, leaving winding trails across the floor. 

There is nothing glamorous about caring for an old dog.

There is laundry.

There are carpets.

There are moments of frustration I wish I did not have.

There are people who have gently suggested that perhaps it is time.

And I have asked myself that same question more than once.

But whenever I imagine the answer, I stop thinking about what Harvey cannot do.

Instead, I notice what he still chooses.

He still perks up when he hears the treat bag.

He still insists on going for walks, even though after a block I scoop his little body into my arms and carry him the rest of the way.

He still stretches his face toward the sun whenever its warmth reaches the sidewalk.

He is still happy, only in a different way. 

Harvey has slowly become my greatest teacher about aging—not his own, but mine. He reminded me that worth isn’t measured by perseverance, productivity, or independence. He has also shown me that love has never asked for any of those things. Love simply asks whether we are willing to remain present when someone can no longer offer us what they once could.

Harvey has taught me that it’s okay to hit a few walls before finding the door, that a little bit of sunlight on the face can increase happiness, and that love is a lot simpler than we make it. This little dog showed me what it means to meet another heart and simply stay there. 

I’ve stopped wondering if I’ll know when it’s time. I don’t think it is an intellectual question so much as one for Harvey to answer. But right now he is here, and I will cherish all of him, even the parts that come with the privilege of growing old together.