Look, the kids got a Christmas tree on Sunday (Feast of St. Nicholas), and moved Roscoe’s bed to a seasonally appropriate place in the living room. It’s amazing how much a Christmas tree can perk things up around here.
Because I wrote last Friday about places where we feel more at home in the world, and I mentioned that the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris do that for me, I went back over the weekend to Terrence Malick’s 2013 film To The Wonder, which features that park in an early sequence. It’s where Ben Affleck’s character Neil asks his French girlfriend Marina (Olga Kurylenko) to move with him back home to America.
She agrees, and finds herself (and her little girl from a previous marriage) living in Bartlesville. The love that Marina and Neil found in Paris struggles to withstand the initial shock of life in America.
The film does not follow a conventional narrative line; most people to whom I have recommended the movie did not like it. I get it, but I really do love the picture, which is more of a visual poem than a story. It’s a meditation on love and its vicissitudes. Early in the movie, Neil and Marina drive out to the abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel, called “The Wonder” by the French. The medieval abbey is built on a peak that becomes an island at high tide:
Mont Saint Michel
But during low tide, you can walk on the squishy sand. Passion, like the tide, comes and goes. But the abbey, Malick suggests, is an attempt to construct something permanent and sacred that can endure this waxing and waning. At the center of the abbey, in the medieval style, is a garden. Medievals understood the garden to represent both the Garden of Eden, and the Virgin’s womb. In Malick’s film, we see Neil and Marina basking in their love while standing in the garden at the abbey. Later, back in Paris, within the enclosure of the Luxembourg Gardens, Neil makes his offer to Marina and her daughter. Malick entwines the experience of romantic love with the divine.
As I read the film, Malick is saying that without a firm structure within which to anchor the passions of romance, it won’t survive. Back in America, Neil won’t marry Marina. Their house on the plain is filled with glorious sunshine, but the walls are bare, as if they haven’t really moved in (compare this to the abbey, shrouded in wintry darkness, but constructed in the Gothic style, to make optimal use of natural light). Meanwhile, in Bartlesville, Javier Bardem plays a Catholic priest who is having a profound crisis of faith. He once loved God so passionately that he devoted his entire life to His service. But now God’s love has seemingly withdrawn, and Father Quintana moves joylessly through his days. His faith tells him that God is present, but the priest feels abandoned.
In one scene, and elderly black sexton asks Father Quintana to press his hand to a church window. Can’t you feel God’s presence? asks the old man. Father says nothing, because no, he can’t.
The two men — Neil and Father Quintana — respond in very different ways to the waning of the feeling of love in their lives. I won’t spoil the movie for you, but I will say that the priest rests in the structures that his religious rituals give him. They keep him in contact with the poor and others who see him as a bearer of grace and comfort. of prayer. Here is the climax of the movie: a prayer by Father Quintana (if the video does not embed in this newsletter, you can click here to be taken to the YouTube page for it):
Malick is doing something very deep here. In the High Middle Ages, people thought of knowing God as akin to perceiving light. Gothic churches (like the abbey at Mont Saint Michel) were designed to permit light to stream in, because it was a sign of God’s presence, indeed his transformative presence. Dante’s Paradiso is a realm of pure light, but the pilgrim Dante has to be gradually transformed in holiness before he can see what is really there. Similarly, Father Quintana prays for the ability to see the love — the Love — that really exists, but that is hidden from his perception for the time being. What Malick is telling us, especially in the breathtaking final seconds of the film, is that God, Who is Love, is always there, always calling us back to Himself.
Father Quintana stays faithful. Father Quintana reaches out to others, despite his spiritual poverty. Neil, on the other hand, cannot give, but only take. He does not seem like a bad man, but rather one who is frozen by his inability to commit — to anchor his passions in something sacrificial and eternal.
I needed to be reminded of these things.
About the garden. I am not an outdoorsy person at all, but in my memory, the garden at my old aunts’ cabin is paradise. Forgive me, but I can’t stop thinking about it these days. Here, again, is a photo of their cabin, circa the late 1960s.
It looks like nothing, but I’m telling you, for little me, not yet of kindergarten age, it was the best place in the world. that big tree on the right, it was a sweet olive tree, which Southerners often planted near their doorways to give a pleasant fragrance to people coming and going. The low green bushes off the front porch (the “gallery,” as the old aunts called it) were four o’clock bushes, so called because in the late afternoon, they would flower in pink, yellow, white, and speckled blooms.
Just to the right of the image above was a magnolia fuscata tree, which produced pale yellow flowers that looked like tulips, and smelled of bananas. To the left of the image was a mound of some sort, overgrown with grass and vines, at the base of a vast magnolia tree. I never figured out what it was, but Aunt Lois and Aunt Hilda told me that’s where the king snake lived, and that I should always love king snakes, because they kept the bad snakes away. One day I walked up to see the aunts accompanied by a friend, and there was the king snake, stretched out across the path, sunning himself. My buddy was scared to death, but I simply stepped over the snake courteously, because Lois and Hilda had taught me that he was our friend.
If you followed the path to the immediate left, you would enter a shaded area, with the house on one side, and japonicas and camellias on the other. Past the stamp-sized side porch was a bed of phlox, a purple flower, and behind it a grove of bamboo trees. The old ladies would cut bamboos, dry them, and use them as walking sticks. If you veered to a narrow path that took you around the bamboos, you would pass the compost pile, which smelled powerfully of the earth. Lois also buried her dead cats nearby. That path opened onto a field enclosed by cedar trees, and even a chestnut tree, before some sort of blight killed all the American chestnuts. There was a large pear tree in the middle of the field, and you had to be careful when the pears fell off of it, because they would rot on the ground, and the bees would come feed off their sugars. The air smelled of sweet decaying fruit, which was a sign to be careful
Loisie walked with me through that orchard, as she called it, gripping her cane with her thing hands, viny with blue veins. She taught little me the names of the flowers. Those were King Alfreds. Those were jonquils. These, son, are lilies-of-the-valley. And those red ones with the tendrils, those are lycorises. Magical words! Words for things!
But if you didn’t take the path around the bamboos, and instead stayed on the path running alongside the house, you would pass into a grove of all kinds of trees, the names of which I can’t remember. But the monarch of all those trees was the Chinese rain tree. You see it above, blossoming in pink pods, like purses. Here, from Wikipedia, is a close-up of what the pods look like:
Source: צילום:ד"ר אבישי טייכר
The walk through the grove brought you to the lean-to on the right of the photo. That’s where Hilda parked her old blue Falcon, which my father had to change the clutch in every year or so, because Hilda refused to learn how to shift it out of first gear. There was a cistern and a bucket on the porch, from which they used to draw water in the old days, and firewood stacked next to the cistern. The cabin was a refuge of enchantment for me, but so too was their garden, my own sacred grove. Can you imagine what the phrase “Chinese rain tree” says to an imaginative little boy? What was Chinese rain? Why was rain different in China? Did this magical tree come from China? What is it like in China? The Seven Chinese Brothers from the story, did they have a rain tree too?
I think the story of my life has been a struggle to return to the garden. I think the story of all our lives is a struggle to return to the Garden, whether we know it or not. The other day, I was feeling quite sad. I laid in bed and with my eyes closed, walked through the old aunts’ garden, and tried with all my might to make it live again. Eden, the Virgin’s womb, the abbey enclosure, my old aunts’ garden: there enchantment is, and harmony, and belonging. I think that one reason I have such a strong feeling when I go into gardens is because they take me back to where I was happiest. Funny, but I am always surprised by that. I forget how much trees, flowers, and bushes can mean to one. When I saw a Japanese redwood forest in the Azores two summers ago, I was almost brought to tears by it, and I don’t know why. So I prayed. What else do you do when you are standing in the presence of the Wonder?
A Japanese redwood on the island of San Miguel, Azores
In Friday’s post, I asked you readers to send some thoughts about places where you felt particularly alive. A lawyer writes:
I had the fortune to live in a small room in a flat in central Rome for a year, studying theology at the Angelicum as a guest. This was right after 9/11 and was an incredible time to live abroad. I had no Italian on arrival and lost 10 pounds in a week not knowing how to go about getting food, and not wanting to “do it wrong”. I figured I’d better learn the language or I’d starve. I voraciously scoured the city through the fall and winter, imbibing the glories of antiquity and the medieval and Renaissance Church. I made dear friends, read books alone on trains, haunted outdoor markets, and studied in Rome’s glorious Chinese restaurants. (Yup.) I loved the jumbled mess of humanity there - gypsies, prelates, hoodlums, monks, entrepreneurs - and the noise and the grime and the silence of the churches around every corner. I’ve never felt more at home anywhere and never will.
There was one moment that unlocked Rome for me more than any other. It was when I realized that the Italian language is not words, it’s an entire behavioral mode, and without inhabiting it, you’ll never be understood. For months I’d go into a bar (cafe) and order like this: “Vorrei un caffe macchiato, per piacere, grazie mille”... and they’d either “forget” I was there or they’d begrudgingly make the coffee and serve it with a withering scowl. Finally I realized, you don’t transliterate here. You have to act the way they expect you to act, and that’s like a bloody prince. So I started barging in, slamming my coins down on the bar, and barking “CAFFE MACCHIATO!” And they’d jump and grin and mop the counter and whip that coffee up with gusto, and the other patrons would holler out to me and we’d end up in long, animated conversations and debates. You say please to a Roman and they’ll hate you for it. Walk in like Caesar Augustus and they are happy because that’s how real men should act in their worldview. A hilarious realization. And a key to the city, for me.
Here is a lovely one from a reader in Los Angeles:
Sōseki Natsume (for naming purposes, he's usually called by Sōseki, rather than his surname, as it's a pen name) was a Japanese writer, philosopher, and scholar of English and classical Chinese literature. When Emperor Meiji began the push for Japan to westernize, it was Sōseki he chose to send to London. Sōseki spent a miserable two years there: his stipend wasn't sufficient to fund a decent quality of life, and, as an incredibly introverted man, he resented being seen as an object of curiosity. Obviously, a small Japanese man in turn of the century London stuck out! Sōseki suffered from severe depression and anxiety, and experienced multiple nervous breakdowns during his stay.
Most of Sōseki's major works deal with the themes of modernity and alienation, especially his novels Kokoro, Sorekara, and Michikusa, and his essays from London. He (correctly, it turns out) believed Japan was modernizing too quickly. It was not natural or healthy for Japan to rapidly absorb a culture that spent centuries developing within the span of about a decade. Japan was heading for what's been translated variously as "a national nervous breakdown" or " collective mass hysteria". See: WWII.
I fear this is what's happening with our society with social media and wokeness. Technology advanced faster than mankind. Like Meiji Japan, what should have taken centuries to absorb was forced on us in a decade or two, and society can't properly digest it. It's more frightening because it's not just one country having a national nervous breakdown, but the entire world.
I was raised in the US by my great-grandmother, a proud Englishwoman and minor nobility who lost everything during the blitz. She made sure my upbringing was identical to her own: upper-class Britain in the Edwardian era, a long-dead culture whose demise broke her heart. She made sure I had a deep knowledge of the classics, history, and our heritage and manners. A culture of gentility and restraint. Because of this, I've never felt at home in the modern world, especially not modern American society.
The first place I've ever felt at home (after my great-grandmother passed away, of course) is my small neighborhood in Los Angeles. It's nickname is "The 48th Prefecture and, you guessed it, it's mostly Japanese. The Britain of my youth is long dead, but I fit in so nicely here. No one thinks I'm odd for being polite and deferential. My Japanese friends and neighbors aren't following whatever Beyonce is doing. Today, I spent an hour walking around this quiet neighborhood with an old man and his kitten (the kitten always walks with him, it's the sweetest thing!) discussing Sōseki! After three trips to Japan, and much classic Japanese literature read, I can safely say I found "my tribe"!
The other place I feel at home? Well, I can't say that, as I'm selfish and don't want it to be on anyone's radar! It's a tiny town in the North of Italy, where, like my great-grandparents fled the Luftwaffe, my husband and I plan to move in a few years. A flight from modernity, one could say. A place to throw our smartphones into the Mediterranean! (Though, I can't condone littering!)
As Gavin Newsom's increasingly intense lockdowns have driven my depression and anxiety into overdrive (I relate to Sōseki's writing so strongly because I, too, have had multiple nervous breakdowns), here are some parting words regarding this confinement:
"The most agonizing thing in this world, I suppose, is the agony of tedium. Nothing is so painful as a consciousness void of change. Nothing is so painful as an able body deprived of movement by unseen cords. Just as to live is to move, the suppression of movement renders the living lifeless. The pain of what one's lost is a pain worse than death."
From northern Alabama:
I’ve thought about the question of where I feel most at home. Despite loving where I am now, it has lacked a bit of something. Writing this, I think that I may have figured it out. So, here it is. It’s not glamorous. I’ve only ever been to Europe once, and that was to Amsterdam, which I didn’t appreciate. And I’ve been from there to Antwerp, Belgium. The only place over there that felt somewhat homelike was in the countryside where there are farms and storybook windmills. But those memories are too vague to recollect specifics.
Like you, I don’t and never did feel at home in the place I was born and spent part of my life. It is one of the most foreign of places for me for reasons simple and complicated. For much of my life, home was not anywhere that I lived, except for those first 6 magical years when we moved away from the birthplace. Then we went back. The most welcoming places were in books like Winnie the Pooh or the Canadian tv show, Road to Avonlea. I always wanted to live someplace like that.
My present home between the mountains in North Alabama is the most home-like home I’ve had for a significant period. Just this week I’ve already written you a little about what it has meant for me, so I won’t repeat that here. The nature and story of the place awakened many interests. My daughter grew up here. Many wonderful memories are here. Yet, it lacks something that I cannot name. Oh, I can most certainly point to the things that I dislike about it. The hunters and target practices on the mountains above us can make it sound like a combat zone. Our house sometimes vibrates with the explosions of the army base to the north. And for heaven’s sake, the summer humidity and sometime droughts make me want to flee North as far as possible. Yes, I really dislike those things. But there is something missing that is more visceral, and I do not exactly know what. (At least I didn’t before I wrote this.)
As much as I love this place with its mountains and big pond, for a long time, I longed for something else. More dramatic, yet more peaceful. Maybe rolling storybook hills like those in The Shire. Those hills exist in middle Tennessee and the Flint Hills of Kansas and I do feel at home in those places. The ocean (not touristy) would be good too. Few places that I have seen have both the hills and the sea. One place where they meet is at Reversing Falls in Maine. Those hills are more gentle and descend down to the Reversing Falls. From Downeast Coastal Conservancy, “Between the Reversing Falls Preserve and Falls Island a huge underwater ledge creates the falls. The dramatic tides in the bay rise and fall up to 24 feet every 6.4 hours.”
On a hilltop apple orchard above the Reversing Falls, I about found my terrestrial bliss. That was 12 years ago. I hope the orchard is still there. Also, in a Middle Tennessee town called Prospect in a little log cabin overlooked by a cemetery on a hill, I found a place that felt like home, but only very briefly. Also in Petersburg, Tennessee is a property that felt like deja vu when I saw it. Like the most welcoming deja vu. I love middle Tennessee with its wooded and open field hills, farmhouses, and Civil War era stone walls. It always feel curiously like home, yet I don’t know why. I think the old is a key to what I’m missing.
A place where the old, the sacred, and nature meet. I want a place where ancient stone churches sit on peaceful hills overlooking the ever changing, yet enduring sea, or at least a creek. A place where Evensong meets with birdsong, sea animals, and waves crashing. Eastport and Lubec, Maine come close, minus the Evensong. It’s been years since we took a family trip there and I still subscribe to The Quoddy Tides, so taken was I with that place.
But it’s ok that where I live is not complete bliss because really, I am thankful to be here. I would be even more thankful if the gun shooters would just “Git!” I am happy to live in a state where people take freedom seriously. 2020 has made me realize all there is to give thanks for, even if it has been miserable in a number of ways.
Here’s one from a reader in the Catskills:
In 2010, I had the privilege to make a trip to the Yosemite National Park backcountry for the first time. I went with a friend for 8 days deep into the wilderness of the high country. It was the first trip of this kind that I had done, and was somehow fearless/foolish enough to attempt it with minimal preparation.
The trip actually went off very smoothly, which is a great blessing. My most deeply embedded memory, however, is coming over a rise and viewing a small valley that is at about 10,000 ft. in elevation. I could see the narrow, sandy footpath meandering through it and disappearing past a small lake, with high peaks in the distance. And in an instant, I knew, and then more importantly felt, a sense of being home like I had never felt before. This happened at the age of 32 - such a long time to wait!
I can't really explain it to people, but I suspect you understand from your description of the gardens in Paris. The best I can do is say that my small, anxious self who constantly needs to know what his relationship is to the world around him (am I loved? am I safe? am I enough? are people friends or enemies?) just wasn't there. It was deeply mystical, this de-centering of my self, and also so simple. One minute there with aches and pains and mileage calculations in my head, and the next I disappeared into this valley. And I belonged.
I take deep wilderness trips now each summer, and if I'm lucky I'll have a few moments of this depth and breadth. It's always funny to me. I have these experiences in places that I know I can't stay in forever, and in a real way are somewhat hostile and remote environments. But the ease and joy are there for me to step into. And I am so grateful.
And I belonged. What grace!
I’m still getting a few e-mails about pets and dying, in response to the “Dog Days In December” newsletter from last week. A friend in Baltimore writes:
I have been meaning to write to express my sympathy over the looming (it seems) departure of Roscoe. Well, I’ve been busy of late! But the tales of departing pets have moved me: the loss leaves an empty place, almost like an amputation. My first serious encounter with death was the demise of our pet dachshund, which was a shattering loss for an eight year old (and the following year was when my mother died).
So to go along with what others have said here’s the tale of a more recent loss in my household, that of Niña, the friend I did not expect.
In 2003 I moved to St Pete with my two cats, and a good friend of mine, Scott by name, had moved to Ft. Lauderdale with his cat Jenny. She promptly got pregnant there and when the kittens were born he found homes for them, but a friend of his who had taken one of them, a gray tabby female, had a crisis in life and moved home, and returned the kitten to Scott when he went. And Scott was having to move and he could not have pets in his new abode so he prevailed on me, four hours away, to come and get Jenny and the kitten and give them a temporary home until he could make other arrangements.
Jenny eventually went back to Scott, but the kitten stayed with me—I think I was the “other arrangement” for her. For a long time I did not name her, trying to keep her in the temporary guest slot. Of course I had to call her something, so I started calling her “little girl” and somehow that got translated into Spanish as Niña. The next year she suffered pyrometra, an infection of the uterus and she needed an emergency hysterectomy, which I could ill afford, but somehow did. At that point she was mine. She was always a shy animal, and a very monogamous cat: I was her human and she was all about me, caring nothing for any other person, nor for the other cats in the household. In Baltimore she claimed ownership of my bedroom and there (and only there) she was queen cat. She would lie on my chest sometimes when I went to bed and purr on me. And she often slept on the shelf atop the headboard of the bed where she reigned over the room as if from a dais.
Early in 2019 she developed a tumor (her mother Jenny died from something like that in 2019 too). It was slow growing and the vet could not get fluid from it to biopsy. She was already on thyroid meds, hyperthyroidism is a problem old cats often get. She still seemed content enough, in an old feline, sleep-in-the-sunbeam sort of way. And the tumor barely grew. But as Thanksgiving approached, when I had out of town plans and a friend set to come in to house and cat sit, she began to decline. She stopped eating and when that lasted more than a day I knew from experience that the end was nigh. It would have been unconscionable to leave the problem to my house sitter. I prayed for her recovery but the answer was No. She was the last of my Florida cats, and the last of her line that my friend Scott and I know of. Her departure would be a closing of the book on an era of my life too.
The day before Thanksgiving I was due to leave for Michigan, by car, first thing. And I made the decision to do what must be done. I packed all my stuff in the car, called a 24 hour animal hospital I had used before, and told them I was coming and why. Then I loaded Niña in the cat carrier, texted my house sitter so he knew she would not be there, and we left. Normally Niña hated car trips, but she barely raised a fuss this time. The animal hospital dealt with the business in all professional kindness. I held her as they injected first a sedative, then the heart stopping drug.
And that was it: the subsoil in my yard is hard as granite; I could not bury her in my yard so I paid for cremation. And I left for Michigan with an empty cat carrier in the car and a hole in my life.
Another reader:
I wonder if you know this two-line poem by Robert Frost? It's called "The Span of Life":
The old dog barks backwards without getting up.
I can remember when he was a pup.
I did not know it. Thank you.
Another reader:
Thank you so much for telling your story of Roscoe. My heart is with you during these final days of his life. Great photo Nora took - he is clearly smiling through his pain.
I recently adopted my first dog at age 67 - I've loved and cared for dogs all my life, but they've been community dogs and I never was with them in their last hours.
But I was with my parrots.
I had an African Grey, Steve, for 5 years, who had terrible ingrown feather problems that bled a lot. He was to be euthanized before I adopted him. It took me exactly 4.75 years of patient working with him to get him out of his shell and understand what It means to have fun and to play. That .75 year left of the remainder of his life was wonderful because he was finally truly a happy bird (with the intelligence of a smart 3 year-old).
I had at the same time 2 male cockatiels - Chipper and Charlie - and a Jardine's Parrot named Sam. I had had them for 15 years, since they were young. The cockatiels just made me laugh all the time with their constant chatter and singing. Chipper had his own special tune and would talk - making perfect sense in context - and run to me for assurance if he was insecure. Macho on the outside, but not on the inside.
Sam was a love bug and deeply bonded to me. I'd read a book and he would sit on my shoulder, gently placing his warm beak against my ear and then fall asleep. He was also very goofy and playful. He had chosen me firmly when very young when my roommate left to get married and would have nothing to do with her once she decided to leave. He knew she was leaving - she was divided and elsewhere in her mind, and he knew she was not to be relied upon anymore.
Then, after the 13th year of living with the birds, I kept coming down with full-blown pneumonia - usually twice a year. I finally found a doctor who asked me, "Do you have birds?" My heart plummeted and I found out, after testing, that I was severely allergic to feathers and bird poop. Fortunately, I had not yet developed lung damage, but if I kept the birds much longer, I could have serious problems that would lead to COPD and the like.
I had to decide whether to immediately rehome them or to euthanize them. I tell you, I felt like I had placed myself in God's shoes with such an ethical and moral dilemma and I did not like it and hope to never face that decision again. I also learned, over those 15 years, that parrots are not easy keepers like dogs or cats. They are not domesticated and have very complex emotions and needs and can be frustrating when you don't know what's creating bad behavior, which is why so many end up in rescue places. The cockatiels were getting grumpier in their old age, were used to flying free in the house and would not adjust well to someone who didn't understand their needs or keep them safe. And in my experience very few people are savvy enough to know all those needs.
And God bless Steve, who died at the vet's office after a routine removal of some ingrown feathers just after my diagnosis - so he was out of the picture.
But then there was Sam. He could have lived another 30 years! But I had just heard from a friend who had to rehome their beloved parrot for the same reason, and the parrot died of grief the very next day.
In the end, the decision was logical, but the avalanche of emotions and guilt was overwhelming. I brought them to the vet to euthanize them gently with gas. Sam, especially, was so trusting when I asked him to get inside the box where the gas would be administered that it broke my heart. "Like a lamb led to slaughter " came to mind. I cried from the depths of my heart and can still cry about it!
In the end, I know I made the right decision, but it took me years before I could even talk about it. Even now, I avoid watching parrot videos as it reminds me too much of the amazing friendships I had with those rascal birds and the grief I felt at losing them. Every one of them were gifts from God and taught me so many things about life and understanding and patience and acceptance, getting outside myself, and enjoying the simple things in life. They comforted me when I was down, they cheered me up with a wisecrack at the right time, and they needed me as I needed them. I'll never forget them and have made it clear to God that I need to have them with me when I, May it be in His holy mercy, get to heaven.
And now I have my dog friend Sparky - he's such a love, loyal and true, uncomplicated. Dogs are so much easier than parrots, but it will be no less difficult when I have to say goodbye to him. I'll just love him for as long as God gives me the time.
A reader in South Bend:
Rod, I am 52 and have lived a ‘5 dog life’, each time holding a dog in my arms (or when younger, being in the room) while each dog went through a gentle and compassionate death. None are easy, but it prepares us for the realities of our life, too. None of us live forever, dogs, wives, children, grandchildren.
I was reflecting on this the other day. My dad ran a hospice here locally for years, when he used to go and give talks on the hospice way, he always opened up saying, “from the moment we are born, we are dying”. Sound macabre, but it is true, none of us is meant for this life forever, but for the next life. I look at myself, my wife, in our 50’s, our children in there 20’s and 30’s, and our grandchild who is 5, we are all destined for greatness with Christ.
In a small way, dogs teach us that. Live life to the fullest, sniff, smell, bark, eat, until we can’t anymore. Adore others, love with all of our capacity (of course dogs and their love is not what human love is), but all the same, they are loyal and true to their owners and family and pack. They respect tradition of eating each day at a certain time, of prepping to go for a walk, etc. we could learn a lot from that. And for me, who has worked from home for many years, they return companionship to me during long days with sometimes little human contact.
Anyhow, I pray for you and your family as you are with Roscoe in his final days. I’ve cried each time that I have made the ‘decision’, and felt their warm bodies become heavy in my arms as they fall asleep and are no longer in pain. You will know when it is time, you already realize it is close...and you’ll cry and yes, mourn.
Small consolation, we adopted yet another dog...two years ago, fiercely loyal and energetic and all that....Yet I don’t forget the others before him.
Believe it or not, there are more touching e-mails from y’all, but Substack tells me that I have reached the limit to what I can put in a single newsletter. I’ll move the rest to tomorrow. Hey y’all, please write me more about places in this world where you have felt most at home. I’m at roddreher — at — substack — dot — com.
