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Well-intentioned, Doggedly

Simple enough, wanting to do the right thing.

Like when walking Max yesterday morning. He stopped at the Leyland near the end of the driveway—as nearly every dog in the neighborhood does—and I spotted Luna somehow outside his backyard. Luna’s the 2-year-old black lab that lives across the street and two doors down.

Crucially, Max had his nose grounded and didn’t see Luna. Crucially, too, Luna was looping his owner’s Cherokee and didn’t see Max. When Luna is free, he often runs at us, and Max does not tolerate body checks and so he must snarl and flash his fangs and threaten to take the interloper by the neck. So I just hurried Max back inside to wait out Luna’s flight to freedom.

Good deed, done. Yay.

Nearly an hour later, after our stroll was completed, I was in the kitchen to brew tea. Wham! That sound would be Max striking the living room window with his front paws. Now usually that means the Woman of Many Dogs is walking by. Sometimes it’s the three little ones, sometimes the two mediums—one that has been Max’s sworn enemy from their first encounter on the street more than 2 years ago. Fur up, shoulders lowered, ears back—both of them. Even half a block away, they flip their must-annihilate switches.

Wham! Hmmm, that’s not right. Wham! Are they just standing in front of the house? Wham! Three quick strikes and I am there. Not the Woman of Many Dogs. A husky is standing out front. Bandit!

My new neighbors—about three months—have two dogs. The husky, Bandit, and the pug, Lucy. Lucy gives Max hell at the fence between the backyards, but Bandit and Max seem to have reached détente without much effort. The kicker is that Bandit is notorious for digging under fences to make an escape.

I grab Max’s leash and out I go. Neither adult is at home and Bandit is drifting toward the street. So here I go to save the day. I call him and, surprise, he comes—not wearing a collar.

And then some tiny, scrappy looking little mutt comes out of my garden. Just who is this little guy, I’m thinking. Meanwhile Bandit is crossing my yard toward the neighbors on the other side. “Bandit!” He returns. “Good dog.” I scratch his head.

Now my neighbors’ have a high school junior at home. I’ll just ring the doorbell and all will be well. Bandit is right there with me. Little brown Unidentified Furry Object is snooting around the yard—all good.

I ring the doorbell. Bandit drifts away but comes right back when I call. Again, I ring the doorbell, Bandit drifts. I knock on the door, Bandit drifts a little further away, and Lucy the Pug barks. Bandit strides over and puts his nose against the door.

Am I waking the teen? What are the odds? I knock on the door with a bit more, uh, resolve.

Lucy barks. Bandit barks. From inside. Wait. Bandit the Husky barks from inside. Bandit. Inside.

Crap. I step back from the door. Bandit, inside. Crap! I stare at Husky 2. What are the odds this far south of the permafrost line.

Truth: When I say I knocked on the door, the word knock is not quite right. Lucy is barking and Bandit is barking and my two new friends are now loping down the street. Well, Husky 2 was loping. Little Bit was scampering to keep up.

I quickstep for home. And who should be coming around the curve, but the Woman of Many Dogs. And I imagine my young neighbor opening his front door.

Slipping inside, I hustle Max to the backyard. Enough pounding for one morning. Enough already with the helping out.

Again, I lean on Dirty Harry for guidance. “Man’s got to know his limitations.”

On Two Lives Lost

The words come, or they don’t. Maybe some phrases come, the ones we say when we are confronted with a very particular human moment—a death. Not that we don’t mean what we say. We do.

I do hope family and friends can find comfort in each other’s company—in their arms as needed. In the shared tears that may come. I do hope some peace comes, in time.

A dear friend and colleague of mine last week lost her father who was in his 80s. By all accounts a good man, a good husband, a good father, a good friend. A hard end in the way that a medical diagnosis can be. Tough for those who have a very sharp, deep-in-the-heart sense of seeing a life ebb.

I thought of how his wife, the mother of his children, felt on a first mother’s day without her husband in over 60 years. Take comfort. Find peace.

Today a funeral took place for a former student, killed in an automobile accident far from home—another country, in fact. The girl I knew in high school, bright and fun and funny and curious and sensing a big world out there to be explored, to be grabbed with gusto.

The young woman, now in her late 20s, did wholeheartedly embrace life. Heart and head. A crushing loss to her family. A shock to her friends. Their sense of a life unfinished—a taking away too soon. Too much. Too awful.

Take comfort. Find peace.

I would not presume to take measure of a parent’s pain upon losing a child. There are no words.

We all, it seems to me, take the loss of someone who did not experience what we think of as a full life a little deeper to the bone.

As a teacher of teens over 3 decades for my daily bread, it is not the script as I would have it play out. My students would be out in the world, carving their path—parents themselves, even grandparents at some point. Notice of my passing might come their way as they lived forward into their lives. As it should be.

Maybe the deepest sting is embedded in that expectation of years more to come. Another month. Some hours. A few more breaths.

We are jarred, we are shaken, we are set back. Those of us who go onward may go on less certain--more questions, fewer answers.

But we do not travel alone. In that truth, take comfort. Find peace.

Spiritus Monday: Be the Lamp!

"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder." Rumi (1207-1273)

I really like this quotation—could definitely be the morning offering on Facebook. It’s a little service I provide, my version of “Good morning” or “Yep, another day is unfolding”. Every morning, rarely later than 6:30. However, to that point, I have asked a few friends to wait until Day 3 without a morning quotation before calling the authorities.

Hey! I’m retired. Might take a day, you know.

As to my benefit, once or twice a week a name of a student or a colleague or a friend seems to come out of nowhere and likes the morning’s selection. Sometimes I send along a hello or message, sometimes I just check Facebook to see what they are up to, maybe like a picture or an update—a sort of “Hey” in passing.

But, back to Rumi. I got a little twitch, a little speck of orange on my validity radar. Why? The alliteration. What would be the odds that Rumi’s 3 nouns would translate in such fashion?

Random detail: Pakistan translates as Land of the Pure in Persian.

Three online translators clearly show three different beginnings to the Persian words. That’s good. So, just a random blip of my own making—how typical. But, ever onward, Skeptic.

Even better, goodreads has it as “Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd”.

Like a shepherd, so the onus is on me to care for, to tend to the needs of, to retrieve—maybe to sling a stone at a wolf. (Had to go there.) Light the way, rescue from the storm, provide a leg up. 

As we all are lambs, perhaps if we all would be shepherds….