Del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
TwitThisA Happy Family Again
Our separation was tough on us all and tentative from the start. I was over at Lisa's house nearly every day, and we did something as a family at least once a week. Although we remained friends through the ongoing arguments about money and emotional slights, getting back together did not seem to be an option. This was clear to everybody: Lisa, our children, and me.Even so, Helen didn't give up. She asked for a pig again over the summer for her birthday, although we had nowhere for it to live. And then this past fall, when it came time to write a letter to Santa, this is what she wrote: "Dear Santa, I don't really want anything for Christmas this year, except for a pig. Otherwise, you can bring me whatever you want. Love, Helen."
Good luck, kid.
Santa, clearly knowing better than Helen's parents, delivered Treader on Christmas Eve 2005. Helen was ecstatic, and Treader fit right in, tearing into more Christmas candy than all the kids put together. And something even more unexpected happened. I decided I wanted to get back together with Lisa.
"So I guess we'll have to get a place that has at least two acres. I think that's the code for farm animals," I said while cleaning up the third pile of Treader poop in less than an hour.
"We?" Lisa repeated with the barest hint of a smile.
"Well, yeah. Who else is going to clean out his shed? Helen? We can't even get her to make her bed."
Treader went to Christmas dinner with us, and when he fell asleep beside our friends' woodstove, we knew Santa had done the right thing. The only problem was that Treader had to go back to his momma because of our living situations -- and because he wasn't weaned.
In truth, once Treader was safely back at his birthplace, I was hoping Helen might have had enough. Instead, she went to full-court press, insisting we visit Treader every week. And every day, the second she was off the school bus, she'd ask, "When are we gonna get a home for Treader?"
Within a month, Lisa and I made an offer together on a new place. It was much less expensive than the previous home, but it sits on 2.3 acres, plenty of room for Treader, who finally came to live with us this past spring.
Now, let's just say it's never a good idea to bring home a pig before you've built a pen, especially if you decide to move him from the back of the capped pickup truck, where he was perfectly content, to the three-foot-high trailer where the open air and freedom were just too enticing. He will escape. And you will end up running through briars, mucking through bogs and swatting past mosquitoes for hours on end. When that happens, no matter what you do, don't pick him up around the belly. Pigs really don't like that.
What pigs do like is a child's unconditional love. And a happy family that will take them for walks, scratch their belly and put away the trash can before they get in the house. Pigs are scary fast.
Advertisement 
