The Good Good Pig (21 page)

“I'm coming—I'll be there as soon as I can.”

C
HAPTER 14

Hog Heaven

“T
HIS LETTER IS AN OBITUARY FOR AN ANIMAL
,” L
IZ WROTE TO
the newspapers' editors, “a pig named Christopher Hogwood, who died in his sleep on May 9, at age fourteen, in Hancock. From the time he entered their home as an infant until the day of his death last Sunday, he was the beloved companion of Howard Mansfield and Sy Montgomery. We seldom honor animals by noticing their deaths, and the obituary pages, of course, are closed to them. Nevertheless, their passing can leave large holes in our lives—we mourn for them as we mourn for the human members of our family, although our mourning is not acknowledged.

“Christopher was well known, not just in Hancock but throughout New England, as the result of his appearances on various television programs. When a local storekeeper was reluctant to accept my check drawn on an out-of-state bank, he changed his mind and took the check when I named Christopher Hogwood as a reference. Yet it was Christopher's persona, not his fame, that makes his death so saddening. Pigs get bigger as they get older—Christopher must have weighed about 750 pounds. Yet he was discriminating, totally the opposite of the stereotype of his species. It was a pleasure to watch him delicately lift a single strawberry or small cookie from his plate of food as he prepared to savor that morsel before continuing his meal. But such delicacy was in keeping with his character—he was wise and gentle, and very intelligent, with a remarkable memory for people, whom he recognized by voice as well as by appearance, even those he had not seen for many years. Not many people could do as well. We believe animals to be lesser than ourselves but that is because we do not know them. By allowing us to know at least one of his kind, Christopher did us a great service.

“He lies in a grave in Hancock, near the barn that was his home.”

T
HIS LETTER RAN IN THE TWO LOCAL WEEKLIES—PAPERS THAT
had carried the news of Christopher's trespassings in their police logs in his younger days.

One of the papers didn't stop there. Alerted by Liz's letter, our friend, the
Monadnock Ledger
's editor and novelist Jane Eklund, realized that Chris's death—and life—was news. The next day she came over, bearing a Mexican lasagna for dinner, to interview Howard and me for a longer article.

It ran as the lead story on the front page, complete with his photo—poking his great head through an oversized picture frame Howard had found at the dump, the pose from our latest Christmas card. “Christopher H: A Life Well Lived,” read the banner headline. “Famous Pig Laid to Rest.”

But by the time the papers came out, many people, both in town and beyond, already knew.

After I called my three closest women friends, I was able to speak to only a handful of others the day of Chris's death. I phoned Jarvis and Bobbie, and not only because they had been such good friends to Christopher; they would surely wonder what a backhoe was doing in the barnyard. I called Fiddleheads to stop the flow of slops. I called Gary. I could not bring myself to speak to anyone else. I asked Gretchen to call George and Mary; Liz promised to tell our vet, Chuck, and his staff.

But word spreads fast in a small town. The news was on everyone's lips, from the Cash Market to Fiddleheads to Roy's grocery in Peterborough, where the image of Chris on his Christmas card was posted behind the meat counter.

The phone rang and rang. The answering machine overflowed: “I'm so sorry.” “I can't believe it.” “He was really special.” “Let me know what I can do.” “He really was some pig!” To notify our out-of-town friends, Howard and I e-mailed Liz's beautiful tribute.

A classmate who had lived all of his life in cities and who now worked as a magazine editor in New York called to tell us, with great sincerity: “Of all the pigs I've known, yours was the coolest.”

Cards and e-mails poured in. A producer from the public radio station, where so often our pig had been mentioned on the classical music program, sent my favorite pig quote, from Dylan Thomas: “The sunny slow lulling afternoon yawns and moons through the dozy town…Pigs grunt in a wet wallow-bath, and smile as they snort and dream. They dream of the acorned swill of the world, the rooting for pig-fruit.” And this was her wish: “May Christopher always be dreaming of the acorned swill of the world.”

In their condolences, people recounted their memories: “We remember the piglet who escaped from your hands, dragging his leash, and ran into the horse pasture in search of delectable apples,” my literary agent from New York recalled from the first time she and her husband had come up to visit. “And Steve had to jump over the wooden fence to save him from the horses, who were very territorial….”

“We have an indelible image,” wrote Eleanor and Dick Amidon. “A misty morning and two pointed ears coming up the driveway through the mist, headed straight to the new lettuce….”

“I can't believe how much I am feeling,” Mollie wrote. “No more slops feeding, washings, cajoling him back into his pen with chocolate doughnuts….”

“If there was ever wondering about Hog Heaven,” wrote the postmistress, Pat, “Chris created it with everyone he saw. He is a legend and will go into the Hancock history books as the activist who brought people together with his beautiful love.”

Christopher's influence, in fact, extended far beyond Hancock. Another college friend wrote from New York about how much Chris had meant to her young son, even though they had never met: “How sad that Stephen knows Christopher only from pictures. But please be assured, he is a true character in Stephen's life—as real as the boa constrictor his aunt saved from a careless pet owner who didn't realize the snake would get that big, and far more real than Piglet and Edward Bear and Rabbit in his storybooks. Stephen loves animals, and we love to tell animal stories to him just as he is drifting off to sleep. Christopher Hogwood was remarkable material for his bedtime ritual, but always with the promise they would meet someday. So Christopher Hogwood has taught us yet another lesson in his passing—stay close to your friends because, although they may seem endless, tomorows are finite.”

And Girindra, through our translator the schoolteacher, wrote me from India: “I came to know the death news of Christopher; it could live more as you have been nursing it warmly but its day were numbered, so the God called it to him in the heaven. Your dear Christopher's death is a very painful shock to us, but as death is eternal and all soul use to rest in heaven, the pig should reach there leaving his old torn earthly body. May God bless him; he is a holy soul. I pray to Almighty for him. In this respect I shall say that you are the lucky one as you have served your best for relieving him. Who can do much more than this? It's a great satisfaction.”

J
UST LIKE WHEN A PERSON DIES, PEOPLE BROUGHT FOOD, FOR FOOD
is life. Rice and lentils from Liz's daughter-in-law, Heather. The Mexican lasagna from Jane. Eleanor Briggs brought asparagus from her garden, as well as a nosegay of violets. Bobbie brought brownies—and so did Mary Garland, whose freezer, more than any other, had forever spoiled Chris's appetite for ordinary slops after the ice storm of '98. Chris would have approved.

Flowers flooded the house. As people once brought Chris their frost-killed autumn vegetables, now they brought cuttings from their spring gardens: tulips, lilacs, pansies. The Lillas sent a dozen red roses. We filled every vase and then all of the pickle jars. An orange hibiscus the size of a cruise missile arrived from my mother's friend, Scott Marchand, in Virginia. The publisher of my children's books sent a huge bouquet. Gary sent a cherry tree. His assistant, who knew Christopher only from Christmas cards, sent two huge pink flowering astilbes. Beth, the sole victim of Christopher's tusks, left a potted bleeding heart on the front step. I wondered if she remembered its bloody significance.

There were tributes both private and public. The capital city's daily, the
Concord Monitor,
reran the
Ledger
's article about Chris as the lead story of the metro section in its Sunday edition. The original Christopher Hogwood, the famous conductor and musicologist for whom our pig was named, reran the obit on his official Web page. A local runner proposed to name an annual footrace after Christopher. Another friend arranged for a traditional Native American pipe and prayer ceremony to ease Christopher's transit to the next world. The fire department, whose members had retrieved him from his breakouts in his younger days, paid tribute on their marquee. Along with learning the weekly fire index—a blue, rainy 2 on a scale up to a flammable red 5—everyone who drove past the firehouse read the sign:

Next door, Jarvis built a little bench at the edge of their backyard lawn, down by Moose Brook, and installed on it a small plaque. It read:

The Miller-Rodats discussed whether they should drive up from Cambridge to make a monument to their friend. Maybe the boys could carve or build something for Christopher's grave, Mollie suggested. But Jack had a different idea: “We should dig a huge hole, like Christopher used to dig,” he said. “But leave a big hole there. A hole like he used to dig. A hole like in everybody's lives.”

T
HE HOLE IN MY HEART WAS GAPING
. H
OWARD WAS STRONGER
than I. Now he fed the hens in the morning for me; he knew I couldn't go near the barn without falling apart, and unlike the times I had taken my sorrows to Christopher's stall and wept, now crying didn't make me feel better. My friends promised that time would help.

The bouquets dropped their petals. The new plants took root over Christopher's grave. A little more than a week after his death, Kate came home from college in Arizona and drove up with Lilla from Connecticut to say good-bye to Chris. Jane, in college in Colorado, would have come, too, but she was on a trip with a classmate's family.

I had saved all the petals from the flowers. Kate, Lilla, and I took the bowl of petals with us as we went out to the barnyard. Christopher's fresh grave was like a raw wound that love had tried to bandage with all those pretty plants. George, too, had come by, the day after Chris's death, bearing a pot of low-growing phlox and a small clay figurine of a smiling pig. The little statue served as a headstone. So now, as Kate, Lilla, and I knelt by the grave, we found ourselves together once again by the barn, looking into the face of a smiling pig.

Lilla took a handful of petals from the bowl.

“Thank you for the love grunts,” she said, and placed some petals on the grave, like an offering.

Kate did the same. “Thank you for being, sometimes, my only friend.”

“Thank you for laughing at us,” I said.

And we continued, until all of the petals were gone:

“Thank you for eating all those slops.”

“Thank you for your beautiful, soft ears.”

“Thank you for digging great holes.”

“Thank you for Pig Spa.”

“Thank you for your great soul—for that gaze into our hearts.”

“Thank you for all the friends you brought me.”

“Thank you for loving all those days in the sun.”

“Thank you for showing us your heart—for inviting us into such a happy heart.”

S
INCE THEN
, I'
VE HAD MANY MONTHS TO PONDER THE GIFTS THAT
Christopher Hogwood, a runt pig who started out almost too small to live, had bestowed on those of us who knew him. Of course I had loved him; the fact that he was an animal was not a barrier to me, but a bridge. But what was it about this life that touched so many others so deeply?

His appeal was easy to see. He was adorable as a baby, and then delightful because he was so huge. Bringing him slops appealed to the Yankee sense of thrift; bringing him children made memories that would last kids a lifetime. People loved him because he was so happy. People loved him because he was so greedy. People loved him because he was so porcine—and people loved him because he was so human. Folks loved his gentleness and humor. But for many of his friends, it ran far deeper than that, as I found out in the months after his death.

T
HE REVELATIONS BEGAN WITH
B
OBBIE AND
J
ARVIS.

A few weeks after Christopher's death, I went over to their house to talk. It was more than a social visit. Kate came with me. As a summer independent study for college, Kate was acting as my assistant as I began to research this book. We came back to the Doll House to record our neighbors' recollections of Christopher. And then talk turned to Bobbie and Jarvis's own pigs.

“I really loved those pigs,” Bobbie told me and Kate, “and so did our boys.” She remembered how their middle son used to come home from his first job after college and sit in the pigpen and have a soda with them after work. Bobbie remembered saying to her friends in upstate New York, “‘I don't know how I am going to stand it when these pigs go to market. I am so attached to them!' And they would say, ‘You know, Bobbie, you have to be practical, they can't go through the winter.' And I believed them.

“So the day came in the fall when they were going to be picked up by the man who would execute them,” Bobbie continued, “and I was going to work. And I said to Jarvis, ‘I want them picked up before I come home, because I just can't stand it, and I don't want to see them go.'” But that fall day was rainy. The butcher's truck got stuck in their long, muddy driveway. When Bobbie came home, the butcher's truck still was there. She could hear the pigs squealing as they were pushed into the truck that would take them to be slaughtered.