A stranger took a photo of a Philly woman and her dog’s last walk. She set out to find it.
It was a photograph of a memory Kristina Cusenza wished she had. But the photographer was a stranger, and Philadelphia is a big place. She still had to try.
Kristina Cusenza didn’t know the walk she was taking with her beloved dog Weston one day last month would be their last.
It was true that Weston, a 13-year-old rescue hound, had been ill, with a failing heart. Walking together in their Fairmount neighborhood, as they’d done so many times before, they were on their way to a veterinary appointment.
“I was hoping we’d go to the vet, and we’d talk about something like, ‘Oh there’s another option,’” said Cusenza, 36, a nurse.
They’d stopped to give Weston a rest when a photographer, a man they didn’t know, asked if he could take their picture. Sure, Cusenza said. She never thought to ask for a copy, never got the man’s name.
At the vet, she learned there would be no reprieve for Weston, “my best friend.” There was nothing more that could be done. Not wanting him to suffer, she made the decision to say goodbye.
That was September 12. About a week later, she thought about that final photo and wished so much she had it. Try to find the photographer, friends urged. So she turned to the internet. She posted on a Fairmount neighborhood Facebook page and Nextdoor. She did an interview with CBS Philly.
Her next step was going to be posting fliers around the neighborhood, hoping against hope that her photo-taking stranger would see it and reach out. In a big city like Philadelphia, the odds didn’t seem great.
But then Tuesday night, the photographer messaged her. He said he saw her plea on Facebook. Yes, he would send her that photo — a snapshot of Cusenza reading a book while Weston took a breather on the sidewalk beside her.
The man who took the picture, a retired professor and Fairmount resident who asked that only his first name be used, said he was walking his own dog, a bull terrier named Bosun, when he noticed Cusenza and Weston. The scene - a woman with a tattoo reading a book and her sweet, old dog in front of rowhouses - had such a Fairmount vibe, he said he decided to capture it with his phone’s camera, but first asked the woman’s permission.
The man, Terry, had no idea at the time where the woman and her dog were headed or what the photo would come to mean. But now he is very happy he took it.
“I’m just so glad that she’ll have something that means something,” said Terry, who doesn’t consider himself even an amateur photographer. “I’ve lost a bunch of dogs over the years, and every single one is still here in my heart.”
Having that photograph of one of her last happy memories with Weston that final day means a lot to Cusenza.
“You reflect on your last moments with your loved ones, and I think it’s natural to want one last of everything,” she said. “Or if you knew it was the last time you were doing something even mundane, to know this was the last walk we were going on, I would just savor it more.”
The years gave Cusenza much to savor about her time with Weston, a brindle pup she brought home from a rescue adoption event when he was just eight weeks old. A Brigantine native, she was living in North Carolina at the time.
“I didn’t even want a dog, to be honest,” Cusenza said. “At the time, I was 23. I didn’t have a job. I thought it was a really irresponsible choice, but the person I had been dating at the time really pushed for it. Then the moment I saw Weston, I fell in love.”
The human romance didn’t last, but she and Weston did. In ways, the hound rescued her as much as she rescued him. Cusenza’s mother had died not long before. She was still very much in mourning.
“He was the one who got me moving,” she said. “I wasn’t going for regular walks at the time, but then I got a dog, and I was outside every day.”
Shortly after, she learned Weston had been born the day after her mother had died.
“It definitely felt like it was meant to be,” she said. “Of course there’s no replacement for your mom, but he was such a source of comfort at a really rough time.”
And Weston became the source of many, many happy memories. He was the prince of the dog park.
“When he was younger, we’d go to the dog park, and he would be the dog who riled up the other dogs, and they’d do the puppy circle where they were chasing each other, like the big pack. He was that dog,” she recalled.
She met other people through Weston, as well. Having him expanded her social circle. It also brought her experiences she wouldn’t have had otherwise.
One time they were visiting Eno River State Park when they were still living in North Carolina. Weston had been exploring off-leash. Cusenza decided it was time to go home, but Weston, a stubborn guy at times, wasn’t budging. He wanted to show her something. So she let him lead her off-trail, downhill, until he stopped at a clearing by the river. It was a lovely, serene spot.
“We just sat there together. We listened to the water. I took out my journal and did a little bit of writing. He was like, ‘This is exactly where I wanted to bring you,’” Cusenza said.
“He taught me a lot about letting go and letting others guide you, letting the universe guide you, connecting with nature,” she said. “I wasn’t a nature girl growing up. He really shaped my personality in ways I wasn’t expecting when I got a dog.”
In early 2022, they moved to Philadelphia because Cusenza wanted to be closer to family.
“Our first week, he was a little overwhelmed by all the smells and sights of the city. He was a Carolina boy. But he adjusted quickly,” she said.
Later that year, they adopted a tuxedo street cat, Bobby. Dog and cat hit it off big time.
“They were like brothers,” Cusenza said.
But taking animals into your heart eventually means having to say goodbye. Bobby the cat died in July. And despite Cusenza’s and their veterinarian’s best efforts, Weston’s heart couldn’t be healed.
So on Sept. 12, dog and owner went on a walk, not knowing it was their last, stopping for a quiet moment along the way on a sunny city sidewalk. An observant stranger happened to see them and captured that special moment. This past week, the same stranger saw her internet plea, and returned the memory to her: A photograph of her great good boy, Weston, that she plans to print so she will have it whenever she wants or needs it.
“It’s such a sweet moment because it’s so mundane,” Cusenza said, “such an everyday part of our lives.”