Sun City

The perfect life and beautiful death of a gangly little mermaid...

...By grace of the human mind we can contemplate and prepare for death. Naso couldn't do that, but the countervailing grace is that she lived as though she were immortal until the moment she died, her head nestled in my lap. The last she saw of me were my red-rimmed eyes. The last I saw of her was her smile.

She lived a perfect life and she died a beautiful death and she never once knew even a moment's regret. But she was a little mermaid - every dog is a little mermaid - always on the outside looking in, a misfit in a world she would pay anything to be fully part of. She gave up everything she had to be with me, and she walked on knives every day we were together so we could be together. She loved me like nothing I deserved, and I almost never paid her the love she earned from me in everything she did. She worshipped me, and too much I ignored her.

But the little mermaid lives her life her way, always, regardless of how I failed to live up to mine. I was blessed to know her. I was graced to have her in my life for as long as I did. And I will miss her forever...

Willie's wager: Sun City, a new skein of Willie yarns, is going to make you cry.

Uncle Willie wants to make you cry.

But it'll be a cleansing cry, I promise. Sun City is the collection of stories Willie wrote as his ten-year boon companion, his big gangly Bloodhound bitch, Naso, scampers off this mortal coil.

And that's what everyone needs, a book about death. But wait! There's more. Sun City is a book about love, the love of a man for his dog, and the enduring love of families wherever it is found.

Here are three groups of people I can think of who should read this book: People who love dogs - and I mean all of them. Folks who have retired from work or are contemplating it. And broken-hearted lovers who can't seem to keep from making the same mistakes again and again. Parents and grandparents are encouraged to discuss the ideas in Sun City with your young charges. You could spare them the multiple-divorce battlefields the Baby Boomers have slogged through.

Here's the width, breadth and depth of the Ramblin' Gamblin' Willie sales pitch: If reading contemporary fiction leaves you feeling soiled, you're going to love this book. It will make you cry, but it will leave you cleansed.