For Sadie

My dog is not doing well. She is fourteen, close to fifteen and has been a joy to us literally her entire life. So as sappy as it seems, I’m writing this as therapy for myself. As a way of preparing myself for the inevitable.

She was almost four months old when we got her. She was prancing around the yard behind the trailer where her owner lived. Her father/sire was a big, magnificent red golden. He put his paws up on the fence, where he was held, to greet me and was nearly my height. Kept in a separate pen, Sadie’s mother was probably a mutt, and very sweet and tired. I tried to comfort her. Tell her I would take good care of her baby. Sadie was the last one of the litter. She no doubt would have had a similar fate had we not adopted her. A life of giving birth to litter after litter.

We see a lot of cute videos about animals on youtube and facebook these days. It seems we all feel that unshakeable bond. Elephants, pandas, birds, cats, goats… just about every living creature that has been a pet you can think of. What’s it about? I think it’s about their innocence, their loving nature. Their dependence on us, their ability to give freely without guile. Their loyalty. Their companionship. We talk a lot about unconditional love, but here it’s more the rule than the exception. Unshakeable sweetness. All of those things, and so much more.  

Two times, many years ago I had life-threatening illnesses. Every afternoon, I would have to lay down to rest. Sadie would climb up on the bed, back up to me and literally lay across me. It was if she was giving me healing treatments. It worked. She never did this any other time before or since. She knew. How? I don’t know. But it worked.

My good girl is still with me. I don’t know for how long. But every moment, I will try to give her what she has always given me. 

MARCH 2016 BOOK SELECTION: MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON

Reading taste is so personal, isn’t it? Books that blow me away barely register on the “okay” scale for others. For example, Elizabeth Strout, who authored this month’s book selection is one of my favorite authors. I shared another book by her, Olive Kitteridge, that I LOVED with a fellow book lover. Their response was sort of, “eh, not so much.” It did win the Pulizer Prize for literature. I’m just saying.

For some books it’s just the characters, some the language, some the storytelling. For me, Strout does it all. Her observations of people and life just leave me astonished. The things we all notice but don’t register…. She notices, she observes, she crafts, then renders beautifully on the page.

This novel is created as the main character, Lucy Barton, a writer, shares memories of her life with us. It begins with a recounting of her long and unsuspected stay in the hospital for a mysterious infection following routine surgery. A surprise visit from her mother sparks a series of memories that take us back and forth through time from her difficult childhood forward.

I love strong female characters. The one thing that makes this character unique and endearing is her guileless inability to recognize her own strength and resourscefulness. We visit some dark places with her but it is never done gratuitously. The novel reminds us of the complex and often not fully understood connection between all of us and our families of origin. Sometimes loving. Sometimes not.

Recommend.