Curves, tunnels, steep ascents, unnerving drops down the mountain when the weight of the train threatens to overrun the engine and send the whole enterprise cascading down into ruin.
Life is like that.
Phoebe, left, and Po look me over and wonder if he can be trusted, this strange man who has taken them into his home. Will we be fed, and loved? Will we be sheltered from life’s storms? Who is this man anyway? Why are we here? (Click the image for an expanded view)
And, fight it or not, there are times when the brakes don’t hold. The cars jump their couplings and somersault ahead, tumbling over the engine in a great squeal of rending metal and the futile cries of our despair.
We’re never prepared.
We’ve always known it was coming. True, we’ve never known the day, the hour, let alone the minute the call would come. But we’ve know it was coming.
And come it does, just as we knew it would, catching us unawares and unready, off balance and out of sorts. Every damn time.
And I know that Phoebe and Po are out of sorts as well. Loved ones — be they four-legged or two — always are at times like these.
We believe we can never know exactly how dogs feel, can never know exactly what they must be thinking, but we should not find that strange. It’s the same with other people. We can never really stand in their shoes either.
The best we can do, I guess, is practice empathy and extend grace — four legs or two.
And that’s what we’re trying now. And on Day 2 it’s going about as badly or as well as you might expect: In other words, we are making it up as we go.
At least Phoebe and Po are easy going and wise in the way 12-year-old dogs can be, and wisdom certainly doesn’t hurt if you’re baking a dish without a recipe — as we are doing.
Wish us luck.