An electric box in Hollytree displaying art in remembrance of Brownie, a dog who would visit numerous residents in the neighborhood.

Such a precious soul will never be forgotten.

He was more than a celebrity with beautiful brown eyes that could read your soul. Even if he could have, he didn’t need to speak, his eyes said it all. And his friends spoke for him.

Some say he was a “rock star.” I’m sure of it. And never have I seen so many people, with so much love, so much diversity and so much strength come together for him. Even those who never met him, like me. So many times I drove through Hollytree just hoping to catch a glimpse of this willow-the-wisp. Sadly, I never did, but I loved him just the same.

Brownie was his name, just Brownie. A lady who first welcomed him gave him that name. And that’s all he needed.

He survived the Texas winter of 2021, “Snowmageddon” they call it, with record-breaking temperatures down to -6 F in Tyler, thanks to a makeshift house with a heating pad on a kind family’s front porch. They let the worried neighbors know they had this, Brownie was going to be all right. Throughout the years, if there was even a suspicion that he might be in any kind of peril, a neighborhood alert went out and it was widely made known to all, “that little one belongs to us.”

Brownie did not like to be touched. At one time, a lady did so accidentally while feeding him, and said he looked at her with the most astonished gaze. She immediately said she was sorry and was sure he’d never come back. But thankfully, he did. Sometimes, she said, she wondered if he was real, real or an angel. I think he was both.

But in 2022, he was gone. Not on one of his sojourns about the neighborhood. We’d all have been so grateful for that. But gone, to the Rainbow Bridge.

One neighbor said, “I knew one day I would pass by his ‘safe place’ and his shelter would not be there, and I would know he was gone.” The tears that have flowed since and continue to flow could fill Texas Stadium. One year it’s been, and still I cry as I write this, for a little darling I never met. For a while I couldn’t write it, but this little piece of joy must be remembered, especially in the times we now live in.

But Brownie passed as he would have wanted and as he had lived — very much free. Brownie did things his way, he’d have nothing else.

He was just a pup when people recall meeting him for the first time in an area off Old Bullard and Rice Road around 2002. He was living under a building that had been a church. And so came many, with good intentions, to catch him. They left water and food, and love. Even as a baby, Brownie was too smart for them, though. His middle name should have been Houdini.

Then one day came came a wrecking crew to demolish his building. Brownie was lost, bewildered and so many worried and grieved for him, again trying to catch him. But he had decided to move farther south, to a place where he was welcomed by many. They became his and he became theirs, as much as he could be. He still traveled about, some days lying in a sunny spot on Broadway and Rieck Road or cruising through some nearby apartments to see who he knew. But he always came home to Hollytree.

Brownie had a breakfast routine, a lunch routine, a dinner routine, and snack routines. I’m told even a lady from Whitehouse came, to be known as “Brownie’s Meals on Wheels.” How sweet of someone, of many, to make sure he was safe, fed and happy. As time grew, Brownie became a connoisseur of food, at times turning down something that wasn’t his favorite that day and moving on to the next snack.

“One morning my husband was cooking bacon and this little dog was at our window, said artist Ingrid Alsina Horner. My husband said ‘maybe he’s hungry’ and we gave him some bacon.” That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Several of the neighbors’ veterinarians gave advice and care as they could. Brownie was well cared for and cherished. So much so that a portrait wrap of him was done for a community utility box near the tennis courts last year. Mrs. Horner had painted Brownie for a friend and the community sold prints to fund the wrap. A statue is planned as well, with hope that the Hollytree board will allow its placement. After all, Brownie did adopt them.

Most folks’ calculations put his age of at least 20. Would Brownie have lived as long, loved life as much if he had been “caught” and had the best of homes? I think not. He was a once in a lifetime “legend” fulfilling what God wanted him to do. Bringing people who were strangers together in love, in and out of Tyler. As one lady put it, “Brownie brought us all together, folks with differences from A to Z, to teach us that it takes God and a village.”

Such a little dog with a big mission. I feel led to say, “Well done, Brownie. Well done.”