Free

Her hoof pawed at the grey gravel of the road, a pleading in her eyes to be free from whatever it was that stopped her in her quest to break her fast. It wasn’t even 7 yet, two police cars with blue lights flashing, a man outside of his truck. Was it he who struck this creature? Did he feel as badly as I did for her? Why were none of them patting her soft fur? I wanted to stop, to be there to witness and share that pain. Would my touch cause her more distress? I will never know. I did not stop.

Class one starts at 7:36, my homeroom kids, one in particular, look forward to me being there to open the door. This place they so dutifully go to because it’s what we do. I am lucky to have this job. One wrote to me last week and told me I was like a Mom to them. My need to be at work won, I did not stop for the deer. I still feel guilty. Did she suffer?

While I write this, Thomas plays a softened version of Surfer Girl on his guitar, the one that Paul Simon once sang. The pain of losing Fred this week, his four-legged buddy for more than a decade, is softening, as is mine. When my family lost Snip, I wanted to curl up in the fetal position alone for a week. I didn’t. Thomas didn’t either although I’m sure he wanted to as well. Life does indeed go, and needs to go, on

On the home front, Mom and I have had a lot of difficulties over the past few months that continue to challenge us today. We are tasked with redefining what it looks like to move along this path of life together with my kids. We went to tea for her birthday yesterday, she decided to take home the cupcake she got there so that she could show her grandchildren. She has become more of a Nana than ever lately, absorbing the chaos of life with teens and tweens with grace and humor through all her grief. The challenges we have are intense but pass quickly, ebbing away to make room for the good stuff. I still consider myself and my family to be so incredibly lucky to have had both Nana and Grampy shedding so much light on our path these past few years.

Loss, love, pain, joy. Our work, our duty and honor, is to bear witness to all of those things together with our chosen humans and non-humans. Through all the chaos and sadness of this summer’s end, I have come to the simplistic conclusion that of the many things I value in this world, the one thing I hold sacred above all is the profound depth of the human capacity for love. That word gets tossed around so lightly but it is anything but light. Love is a force not unlike the moon, pulling the ocean of your soul to it in good times and bad—it makes pain worth bearing in anticipation of the freedom found in pure joy. When Thomas used to take Fred for walks on the beach, his favorite place, he would tell him to sit and start to walk away. You could feel the classic Weimaraner anxiety as soon as he took the first step. When he was a certain distance away, when he could no longer bear to see Freddie in angst, he’d open his arms wide and say “free!”, having added the arm opening aspect when Freddie’s hearing started to fail. In honor of one amazing furry soul we loved very much, let us say one last time—free, Freddie, free. There are no leash laws where you are now.