All dogs go

Last weekend we said goodbye to Henry.  Henry was the sweetest, most patient and good-natured member of our family.  He rinsed my dinner dishes for almost twelve years.  He had the worst gas of any dog ever.  It could kill brain cells.  Henry made loud Wookie noises at random hours of the night, and rubbed his eye boogers on the sofa.

I made sure the last person he smelled on earth was me, and that the last thing he heard was me, telling him he was a good dog.  We will miss Henry, so much.

Not expecting to be sad

"You expected to be sad in the fall.  Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintery light.  But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen."

 

Earnest Hemingway

A Moveable Feast

I've never agreed with Hemingway about the fall, because autumn usually makes me happy.  However in September it rained here, buckets and buckets, and some of the days were so dark at noon that I had to put on the heat and the lights.

My friends and I, most of us similar in age, began talking about being sad, and getting older.  Autumn things.  It made me think about a picture I took this year, when I was awake early in the morning and looking out the window.  The weather had been grey and rainy and I couldn't tell if the sky was cloudy or clear, but then I saw a gold spot in the field that started getting bigger.  So, I knew the sun was coming out.

My Grandma T, as you know, reached a point in her life when she could remember only songs.  She used to sing this one:

Some golden daybreak, Jesus will come

Some golden daybreak, battles all won

He'll shout the victory, break through the blue

Some golden daybreak, for me, for you.

She used to whisper the part about "battles all won," as if it were a secret.  But it's not a secret.