( I wrote this post on a day I was facing down a major life choice and was self-absorbed momentarily with my own disappointment and disillusionment. A loping, loveable Labrador wandered into view and opened the world back up to me. Now, just a few months later, I looked back at this and realized how profound and sustaining the qualities Lois embodied are -- simplicity, openness, playfulness, love and wonder) :
I’ve been watching my Labrador, Lois, playing inside her
little tent house, head popping up to look out at birds and squirrels and gauge
the distance between her and them and the physics of a well-timed lunge. Sometimes she walks out of her house and comes
to the French doors next to where I am sitting and she lies on her back and
looks up at me with those innocent, all seeing Labrador eyes, and of course I
want to be in her world.
Lois is incredibly important to the universe and blessedly
unaware of that. She is majestic and
goofy at the same time. She tries very
hard to sit for a long time when told to do so, but she loves you so much and
is so happy to see you that eventually her emotions get the best of her and you
have armloads of Labrador and paw prints on your chest. Lois is uncomplicated.
Food and love are her primary focuses (and squirrels and the
slow moving turkeys that walk the neighborhood and end up on our roof in an
awkward flurry of disused wings because they’ve gotten too close to her). She slides across the hardwood floor onto her
large bed in front of the hearth, and then it too slides across the floor and
she looks about her mystified by her continued motion forward. Eventually she lands in some corner of the
room and she sets her head down on the bed and looks up again with those
Labrador eyes. Her tail wags. She is in some kind of heaven just being near
me, and at times I am overwhelmed by that simple responsibility.
Lois lives large and fully open to life every day. I don’t know the particular status of her
short term or long term memory – but it’s clear each day is a gift, each new
rawhide a treasure like no other, each time she sees my son Mack up on the
landing peering down at her from the upstairs balcony her heart surges as if it
is her first sight of him. She has her
own rich, inner life too. She contemplated
a lady bug for quite some time this afternoon, mesmerized.
Am I a good human to her, a good friend and companion? Hopefully, but I think the truth is as long
as I am kind, playful now and then, and keep a food bowl nearby, she forgives
me my shortcomings and accepts me as I am.
Lois lives in the daylight, even when it’s dark outside. She is in so many ways my role model (and not
just because she can catch a squeaky football with significantly greater
consistency than any of my other playmates and doesn’t mind going outside with
me at halftime). You know what I
think?
I think the day Mack fell in love
with her at first sight fourteen months ago was one of the best days ever and
it’s a gift to emulate Miss Lois and enjoy the simple things in life and to
feel your heart expand in your chest and your tail wag of its own volition at
the sight of someone you love; or you know, or you are quite excited at the
prospect of meeting; at the sight of a nice rawhide or a lady bug, or that slow
moving turkey across the street. For
every turkey who realizes in time that he can fly, for every lady bug who also
flies away – there’s always the gift of a buried rawhide somewhere in the yard
that you discover quite by accident and get to carry in your mouth triumphantly
as you come inside to slide across the floor onto that big comfy bed by the
fire. Yes, life is good, love is
empowering, wonder abounds - and Lois is my daily reminder of that.
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