Dusty

This is Dusty's story.

In 2010, I had another surgery in America. Being a teenager away from all his friends was a little difficult, so I used Twitter a lot to keep in touch with them. I interacted with a lot of people I didn't know personally, but one account in particular used to regularly @-reply me. I didn't recognize the name, @JustAnotherTrnd, and the profile picture of two dogs didn't jog my memory either. Even so, tweets signed 'Dusty' and 'Hurley' would come in, congratulating me on milestones and wishing me well when I mentioned physiotherapy. 

I got to know the account better as time passed. Dusty and Hurley were two therapy dogs, with someone scribing their anthropomorphic thoughts to life. Coming from small-town Ireland, I was shocked that their scribe, a woman I got to know named Shari, cared about me so much as to follow me on Twitter and check in on how I was doing. A couple weeks later, she sent me a direct message (a private tweet, essentially), asking for my address. A few days after that, a long-sleeve grey T-shirt arrived with the words LIFE ROCKS emblazoned on the front. I still have that; a memento of, clichéd as it is, the kindness of strangers.  

We stayed in touch after I left America, exchanging e-mails with photos and well-wishes. When I mentioned I was visiting New York City in 2011, she offered to introduce me to someone she knew there. One balmy Saturday evening, I sat across from a young lawyer in a restaurant just off Central Park. Over the sound of the horse carriages and the traffic of Fifth Avenue, I asked her how she knew Shari. It turns out that 10 years ago, the young lawyer had been in need of a kidney transplant. Shari heard about it through a sign in a random shop and, well, she volunteered. I was floored, but it fit so well with the mental image of the Shari I knew (who I had never met) -- she just was just the sort of person who would do that sort of thing. 

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I'm gearing up to move to the USA in August, studying journalism at New York University. One of the things I want to do before I go is find a home for my drum kit. Soon after I started drumming, on the cheapest starter kit I could find, a friend of mine (who I knew only from Twitter and had never met) e-mailed me and asked if I'd mind his drum kit as he was moving to America. He thought about putting it in storage, he said, but why not give it to someone who'd use and get enjoyment from them? A worthy question, and one that's now relevant to me, as it's my turn to move to America. 

For that reason, I decided against just keeping them in my old bedroom, playing them when I was home for Christmas. I decided to find a home for them. I wanted to do a Tony on it, and give them to a young kid in Limerick, indoctrinating them with a love of hitting things with sticks to music. I like to think it's what Shari would do. Actually, it's exactly what Shari would do.  

And so that's how my bass drum, pictured at the top of this post, came to be inscribed with the words Dusty. SB, 5/4/13. Dusty was one of the original therapy dogs, but who died last year. I read about her death and found myself much sadder than I would've imagined. I'd never met the dog, let alone Shari. And yet, the dog symbolized the kindness Shari had showed me when I was in hospital. 

Shari inspired me to do random acts of kindness. Dusty is how I choose to mark that.