“Supposing a tree fell down, Pooh, when we were underneath it?”
“Supposing it didn’t,” said Pooh.
After careful thought, Piglet was comforted by this.
I must drop off Sparkle and Stash at the dog cottages where they will board while I travel overseas. I look over my shoulder and the last vison I have is of Sparkle trotting out into the gravel run, ears pricked to look to the spot there where she had last seen me. My heart stumbles as I walk up the hill and I want to turn and run back to her.
I love the work and travel, but I feel so far from them. And the world feels crazier than ever. In some ways it may be, but any historian will point out the error. The Middle Ages were no picnic. The desire to hold and stroke them overwhelms at night in my room an ocean away. I worry. Will there be thunderstorms? Stash is so frightened and who will comfort her in her fear? There were storms, but Sparkle was there for Stash. There were even severe tornadoes. My sister texts me, telling me after the fact, I guess preventing me from panicking. The tornadoes cut a path straight through where the two beagles were staying—a fear I had not even considered upon leaving.
I know it’s unproductive to worry.
“Worry does not take away tomorrow’s troubles. It takes away today’s peace.” The Buddha
“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life.” Luke 12:25
Yes, but easier said than done.
I keep their photo with me and try to connect with them but all I feel are the many miles between us. Then I turn the photo over and read the words a friend wrote many years ago:
You can be with them when you want to. See their eyes, feel them, and you are with them. It works, as you know. Be open to them as they are to you so that they can let you know of their presence if they want to do so. And since the dogs will be here, in safety and peace,[they were then secure with my mother] let them enjoy time here as you enjoy time there. All will be well. All in Divine Right Order. So easy to say….
Sparkle & Stash
Hot dogs
I know this is true and I know in a larger sense everything is okay. I’m not much worried about dying for my own sake, only that I would hurt the people who love me and leave Sparkle and Stash without someone to care for them in the way in which they know.
The plane lands safely and I don’t die. The next day I drive out to where they’ve been boarding. I hear them before I see them. I call their names and hear Sparkle make her low-pitched Roooooo, the sound she makes in joy and greeting when I return home to her from work, so different form the shrill sounds she makes hunting. Stash hears her, understands and comes running out from inside. ARRR, ARRR, ARRR, mouth open wide, she reprimands me, “You’re back! You’re back! You left us!” ARRR, ARRR, ARRR.
Once home, they crash, sleeping on chairs, on the soft bed. This trip was longer than usual. They stay glued to me. They each gaze into my eyes—and the knowing, the love is all there.
Stash had been hurt, the vertebrae in her neck damaged. I laser her and slip the Assisi Loop over her back and now she spends hours hunting in the front fields. As the temperature creeps up, I go out to call her in and smile in relief as I watch the grasses moving as she makes her way. The sounds of the cicadas fill the still air and speak of heat and sultry summer days. Sparkle jumps up to me, not quite as clamorously as Sasha used to, but there she sits in her funny sit upon me, her dark eyes gazing directly into my own, her once sienna-brown muzzle now flecked with white.
I don’t want to look back as I so often do and wonder: where did all the days go? And Sparkle in her wise self says, “They went to loving.” Yes, I want to be able to say the days went to loving.
I look to the photos of all the dogs who’ve gone before. They’re all unanimous in saying one thing: don’t worry. I will travel again and have to leave them and they will be okay. But that’s the future and this is now.
In the pink puffs of mimosas, I feel the fullness of summer. Languid days, the orange day lilies, bare feet on grass, fresh lemonade. The earth thick and damp with the smell of rain, the scent of summer trees. In the green leaves of a volunteer pumpkin vine, I already feel fall. And in the stillness of this evening, the towhee tells me to drink my tea. Two pairs of eyes gaze back at me with what I can only hope is their own form of gratitude and love.
Days of perfect peace and quiet joy.
