Cocoa girl

In 2013, I moved my family to Chester, PA. I was aware of its reputation but I had seven people with whom I am responsible for housing and basic needs. We had been living under my mom's roof since late 2010 and I had just started on my road to sobriety after a decade of decadence, or so to speak. I was attending group, got some work and things were really good for a while. Eventually life brought my mother and I to a falling out and she evicted me from her house. There was a lot of personal stuff going on that isn't even worth remembering but the point is that I had to find living accommodations for my family of seven.

The impossible happened and I found a man who had just bought an abandoned 3 story, 6 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, along with a gaping hole in the roof, wet walls and the front of the house was slightly leaning forward. I was desperate, so I convinced the owner to allow me to put new rugs and some flooring down while he fixed the hole and the electricity and I could move in there within a month's time. There were three churches, two on my block, and another one up the street. It was a section of Chester called church city. Our block only had about 6 houses on it and a corner store at the end of the block, Kings. It seemed safe enough. I installed a video surveillance security system just in case. Not that it did any good because people were coming in our yard and just looking at the camera as they relieved us of our children's possessions. Then they cut the lines for the cameras. Not good.

Now, a friend of ours needed a dog sitter so we volunteered. Big, dumb Duke. He kept our house safe but he would run away from us for hours, standing still until we were just about to grab him and he'd take off again. He also found a spot in the house that the previous owners used as a kennel because I did my best to remove the smell but not good enough for Duke. That dog used to piss on the rug like a firehose. I was glad to finally give Duke back but I was convinced that having a dog was paramount after someone had cut our security cameras.

So, an acquaintance texts me out of the blue and says her friend has a puppy but they are both homeless and do I want the puppy? My first reaction was that I didn't want nothing to do with this person. But I relented and asked if I could come see the dog. So me, my wife and my son, Anthony, take a ride. I don't tell my son about the dog in case it's a dud. We reach the destination and I go upstairs to an apartment where this girl is holding the cutest and most pitiful looking puppy, ever. I remember looking into her eyes and almost feel the pleading but what stood out was her eye color matched her coat color almost perfectly. I nodded my head yes and picked her up. She weighed almost nothing. Her ribs and hind leg bones were visible. She was shaking uncontrollably. They gave me a little blanket to wrap her in because it was cold and rainy November weather.

I brought her out to the car and I kept her up front with me. I eventually turned around to give it to my son and tell him that she's our new puppy, an early Christmas present for the family. He was thrilled. All the kids were. The name Cocoa was the first name that I thought of and oddly enough, 3 of my kids wanted to name her Cocoa. We got her home and I remember all the kids fawning over her after we fed and gave her some water to drink, and Cocoa would make eye contact with me and she seemed so grateful. She was flea infested and malnourished but we cleaned her up and feed her well.

She has been with us through a lot since we got her in 2015. We were forced to move, again, due to the porch roof falling down and the front of the house being unstable. So 2016 found us back at my mom's. My wife and oldest daughter, Caitlyn, lived in Palmyra, NJ, but Cocoa stayed with me until we found a 3 bedroom house home in Chester, again, September of 2016.

We only lived in that house for one year, but so much happened that when our lease was up, we moved to Pennsauken, and Cocoa goes wherever we go. Right now the year is 2020, 30 days from being 2021, and we are living back at my mom's. Cocoa is like an 8th child. She is very smart and listens really well. She's almost like my shadow at times. Hopefully, she'll be with us when we move again and can live in a house for more than one or two years at a time.