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Peter Feldstein
Barbara Boyle
[The Oxford Project]
2007
Inkjet print
Welcome Books
LL/30683
Sage and Zeus are Great Pyrenees. They'd been abused and dumped. It took four weeks to catch them. I used another Great Pyrenees as bait. I laid flat on my back with treats in both hands.
To this day, I can't get them into a pickup truck. If I try, they go crazy. They're terrified of men, especially men in seed caps. Reggie is the alpha dog. He'll back Sage and Zeus into a corner. I'm not a little dog person, but Reggie is the funniest dog I know. He makes me laugh every day.
My mother was sixteen when I was born. She hid her pregnancy by wearing baggy clothes. One night under a full blue moon, she went to a park and delivered me by herself. Fifteen months later, my grandfather tricked her into signing adoption papers. When my adoptive family took me away, my aunts told me they remember me screaming.
The family that adopted me was wonderful, but I always had questions. Forever I wanted to know where my red curly hair came from. When I was fifty, I met an adoption searcher, and with her help, I found my family.
A couple of years ago, I got to meet all my relatives. I was so scared, I brought Reggie with me. But it turned out wonderfully and still feels like a miracle. My half-brother Billy was there. He and I both have red curly hair. We look like twins!
Barbara Boyle
From The Oxford Project. Welcome Books. Photographs © 2008 Peter Feldstein.
Text © 2008 Stephen G. Bloom. www.theoxfordproject.com
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