Tag Archives: grief

A Little Patch of Blue Will Do

8 Replies

It’s been raining for a solid month. How do I know? Because the day my dad went to hospice–poured buckets. It rained until the day he died. Then it rained some more but we had a beautiful blue sky day for the funeral. Then it rained some more and then October was over but it is STILL RAINING. Here’s a haiku I wrote about the weather:

Rain rain more damn rain

Yep still raining rain rain rain

Rain rain rain rain fuck

(That is COPYRIGHTED, y’all, so don’t try to sell it to Hallmark.)

Even on a good day, I’ve already got a wagonful of depression to drag around. Add to that a layer of grief, a layer of rain, a layer of daylight saving time and a snotty cold and it has made for a really bleak week. Oh, then my doctor pointed out to me that I weight 20 pounds more than I did when Carlos was born. Cherry on top.

The grayness is eating into my brain. But right around lunchtime today, a weird soft glow came through my office window. I looked up to see a patch of blue hanging over the soggy trees!

12140862_10206691077708618_6748566311034347001_o

I made a RUN for it. I walked the longest way possible down the stairs, across an extra parking lot, around the E.D., past the puddle-covered helipad, up stairs and down. I crossed the street so I could walk without the old oaks dripping on my head. People I passed on the sidewalk looked like little squinty moles rising up into the light.

Then up ahead, another patch of blue:

marti's

The line snaked out the door but the wait is always worth it for Marti’s at Midday. When I ordered a half Paige (tuna melt) with a half/half mint tea, Marti winked and said, “This one’s on me.” I’ve learned to just say thank you when she does that and put what I was going to spend on lunch in the tip bucket. A few minutes later, she handed me my lunch, blew a kiss and said, “Love you.” Her blue eyes twinkled with loving kindness.

The rain began to plinky-plunk again. I really wanted to sit outside and enjoy the patch of blue sky while it lasted. Then I remembered that there are a few tables on our cafeteria patio that are covered. Victory! I claimed one for myself and pulled a book out of my purse:

11694135_10206691990811445_5293323428666762468_n

Check out that little patch of blue, huh? (It’s about two inches above Justin Theroux, for those of you having trouble focusing.) If you are watching “The Leftovers” on HBO, the book is well worth the read. I watched some of the first season and one recent episode from the second season. Lots of differences in the novel, so it’s interesting to compare how one had to be turned into the other. And Justin Theroux. There’s that.

So I was feeling pretty good, out of the rain, enjoying the last 30 pages of a book, my favorite lunch on the side. I choked up over one scene (No spoilers!) featuring Jill, the teenage daughter who has lost so much in the story. She stood up a person whom she was supposed to meet in favor of hanging out with a cute boy:

She felt a little guilty…but not guilty enough to do anything about it. She could apologize tomorrow, she thought, or maybe the day after.

I ran into some friends, she could write.

Or: There’s this cute boy, and I think he likes me.

Or even: I forgot what it feels like to be happy.

Yep. Sometimes I forget what it feels like to be happy. Today was a nice reminder.

As I got up to leave the patio, I saw one more patch of blue out of the corner of my eye. There sat my friend, Pat, also taking advantage of the shelter of the overhang so she could eat her lunch in the fresh air. Her back was to me and I thought about leaving her to her private time–she’s a nurse who doesn’t get a lot of down moments during the day. Just yesterday, she gave me a hug in the cafeteria. I wanted another one. She was another patch of blue on my trail.

11015841_10206691077828621_7992555483209713131_o

Look at that smile! Pat is one of those people who has been encouraging me for years. Whether it was through grief or motherhood or boring days or thilling ones, Pat never fails to tell me that everything will be OK and I will be too. We talked for a few minutes and she told me how much she enjoys reading these stories on Baddest Mother Ever. I got my hug and another one to spare. Thank you, Pat.

That lunchtime adventure really turned my mood around. I followed the “blue clues” and found myself a little happiness. This afternoon? It poured. As my dad always says–said–“It’s raining like a cow peeing on a flat rock.” I can’t change that. Any of that.

And that’s OK. I just have to find enough happiness to keep going. During those times in life when it’s raining and it’s been raining and it’s going to rain for another week, a little patch of blue will do.

Doors and Windows and Corners

10 Replies

You know that old saying, “When one door closes, a window opens?” I feel like that tonight, here at the end of the Dia de los Muertos when the door to the other world is shut and our beloved spirits draw their visit to a close. Well, the door may have closed, but a window opened for me tonight.

Right around dinner time, just as the noodle water was starting to boil, my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number or the strange area code. I could have ignored it but I was kind of in the mood to snap at a telemarketer.

“Is this Ashley?”

“Yes, this is she.” In my most imperious tone, reserved for strangers who call at 7 p.m.

“Well, it’s your old Uncle Kenneth here. How are you doing, honey?” My dad’s middle brother. Joe and Eunice Garrett’s boys: Charles, Kenneth, and Sammy. I haven’t seen Uncle Kenneth in at least 10 years and I don’t think I’ve ever talked to him on the phone. He and Aunt Margaret have lived in southern Florida my whole life, so visits were once a year usually, mostly back when Grandmama Eunice was alive. Every summer, Charles and Kenneth drove their long American sedans up the interstate to Gay. And as soon as they pulled up in Grandmama’s front yard, they’d jump out of their cars and start talking about what kind of time they’d made on the drive.

Kenneth was calling to say we had been on his mind. We talked about his health, and the weather in Miami, and the ages of my children. He corrected me for thinking he was thirteen years older than Daddy–that was Charles, who died back in the 1980s. He told me his birthday, and Daddy’s birthday, then did the math.

And my window opened.

“What was your daddy’s birthday?” I asked. I never met my Grandaddy Joe. He was killed in a car accident a few days before Little Gay was born, almost four years before I came along.

“January 30. He used to tell everyone that he and FDR–Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he was the president then–Daddy told everybody that all the smartest people were born on January 30.”

I get my story-telling from these people. My dad’s death has left a blank yawning abyss between me and all the stories that he never got to tell me about his side of the family. That tiny fact–that my grandfather’s birthday was January 30–completed a story that I’ve been carrying around for almost forty years.

frost-on-window-637531_1920

One cold winter morning when I was about nine or ten, I was already dressed for school and waiting on the living room couch. Once Gay and Joe were ready, Daddy would drive us up the dirt road to the bus stop and we would wait in the warmth of the truck cab instead of out by the highway. Daddy was sitting in his orange chair, putting his boots on. He had paused to stare out the window over my head, into the hard white winter light.

“Today was my Daddy’s birthday. He would have been…” I can’t remember the age Daddy said because at that point in the sentence, he choked up and started to cry. It was the first time I ever remember seeing my dad cry. And now I know it was on January 30.

Uncle Kenneth told me stories about Daddy’s first haircut when he lost his princely curls. He told me about when he and Charles were filling out a Social Security form for J.P., the hired man who stayed with our family for 50 years. J.P. didn’t know what his initials stood for, so Uncle Charles declared him “James Pierpont Strozier.” And J.P. chose his own birthday–the second Sunday in August, because that was when his church had Homecoming. He told me about when their father died and my father wanted to drop out of vet school but his brothers wouldn’t let him. When we were talking about who was a blond and who was a brunette, Uncle Kenneth mentioned his own son, who has passed. We got quiet.

Then he took an old man’s deep breath and said, “Well, Mama always said ‘God won’t let you see around corners.’ And Daddy said, ‘Play the hand you’re dealt.'”

I’m so glad I answered the phone tonight. I saved that strange Florida number under “Uncle Kenneth” in my phone. The door may be closed for the next year, and we can’t see around corners, but he opened a window for me.

brick-961818_1280

Mi Dia de los Muertos

7 Replies

Back in ninth grade Spanish class with Senora Lee, I was assigned “The Day of the Dead” for my bulletin board project. We didn’t have Google or even Wikipedia back then, so I went to the World Book (you kids can Google that if you don’t understand) and looked up Day of the Dead. After that ahem exhaustive research, I stapled yellow poster paper to the bulletin board, trimmed it with orange rick-rack, and pinned a Dollar Store dancing skeleton to the center. I carefully traced the title of my project across the top of the display and taped pieces of candy in the empty spaces.

My report, in Spanish, roughly translated to, “The Day of the Dead is a lot like our Halloween. The people of Mexico visit the graves of their ancestors and give candy to the children.” Thanks, World Book. So much for experiencing other cultures. I learned more about Dia de los Muertos from the Google doodle today. From Halloween to November 2 is the narrow sliver of the year when the door is opened, when our departed can return for a visit.

Altar for Dia de los Muertos, by Jose Luis Silva.

Altar for Dia de los Muertos, by Jose Luis Silva.

Yesterday, my friend Luis shared a photo of the altar (ofrenda) that he and Brantley created for their home. My heart cracked open to see Spencer there, right beside Lola, Brantley’s beloved dog that he found on the streets of Taiwan. Spencer did so love a pup.

The top level of the altar holds pictures of the souls that you are inviting back into your home. The lower levels offer an array of treats to welcome them–a shot of tequila, a sweet loaf of pan de muerto, a toy for a child. On the lowest level, cool water and maybe soap so they can feel fresh after the journey. All around, candles and bright flowers, sugar skulls.

My own spirit craves a ritual like this. Driving home today in the rain, I cried through three turns of a long red light. It’s easy to cry in the rain because no one’s looking. I thought of who would be on my altar. Daddy, of course, then I realized I don’t have a framed picture of him because I always had him. I would put Richard on there, that picture I took of him at sunset on Santorini, with the big moon hanging in the sky behind him. Grandmama Eunice all dressed up for church. Pop sitting in his recliner with his soft fingers steepled together as he listened to the Braves game on the radio. I’d have Spencer in there too. And Flynt. I’d love to think of Flynt again after so many years. G could bring his people, too–the grandfather who gave Carlos his name.

Altar for Dia de los Muertos, Jose Luis Silva

Altar for Dia de los Muertos, Jose Luis Silva

I’d have a bourbon and branch water for my dad. Sweet tea for the grandparents. A couple of really hot chilis for Pop. A small plate of fruitcake cookies–Daddy and Richard were the only ones who liked them so he made a batch every Christmas. The last of the yellow and orange marigolds from the flower boxes on the deck. The candles that I hid away when Vivi was born. They’re thick with dust but they would remember how to burn.

As evocative as Luis’ altar is, I felt like a fraud at the idea of making my own. The ofrenda isn’t part of my culture. Would I be play-acting? Still, my heart hurt for some ritual, some way to invite the spirits back into my home, even for a few rainy days.

Paige, a college sister, is a Unitarian minister. This weekend, she shared a photo of the candle-covered altar at her church and explained it with these words: “In our annual remembrance service, we honor our precious, imperfect loved ones. And we let our children see our tears.”

Remembrance Service at Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbia, Maryland

Remembrance Service at Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbia, Maryland

Yes. That was what I was looking for–a place to honor the precious imperfect, a ritual to bring the tears into the light (instead of hiding them away in my car at a red light).

But what?

The answer came to me in the quiet of my own living room. I walked through there on the way to change clothes after work and my eye lit on the grandfather clock that Daddy made us for Christmas a few years back. How many kids have a grandfather clock made by their grandfather? He made four that fall, all alike, for the four of us and our families. On Christmas Eve, they were lined up near the tree, each with a wide red bow.

It’s the clock we check from the dining room table to say how many minutes before bedtime. It’s the clock that softly chimes the hours while we sleep. It’s been silent for a few months now because the battery ran out on the mechanism and I’ve been too busy to get to the store and buy the right size.

Tonight, I let the kids eat leftover pot roast while I made a special trip to the store. I got the battery, then I sat in the rain in my car and cried a little.

12186411_10206671027407373_2983080226007123820_o

 

“What you get, Mama?” Carlos asked as I tried to cut the battery out of its packaging. “It’s a battery for the big clock.”

He followed me into the living room and watched silently while I turned the key and opened the narrow door. The pendulum hung still and quiet. Carlos stretched out his hand and waved it along the brass weights and their chains to make them sing. I opened my mouth to correct him…but didn’t. It’s as much his clock as it is mine.

I replaced the battery. I checked the pendulum motor and set it back in motion. I slid the clock back against the wall and the brass sang all in a clatter. Then the pieces settled into the steady work of being a clock. Tick tock. With one gentle finger, I spun the delicate minute hand around until the clock read 7:40.

That’s when I saw it–a precious imperfection. Inside the cabinet of the clock, where the oak face meets the side of the case, a misfired screw poked through. It’s practically invisible, only revealed when the door is open. The instant I saw it, I heard my dad’s exasperated voice bark, “AhhhDAMMIT!” the way he did when he was really angry but already resigned to the fact that whatever was screwed up probably couldn’t be fixed. When the horse was out of the barn, so to speak.

The perfect curves of the clock didn’t move me, the shining brass and the smooth sway of the pendulum, but that tiny screw just 1/16″ out of place brought my dad right into the house again.

Maybe this is the beginning of my own ritual. Every year when daylight saving time ends–right around the Dia de los Muertos–I’ll open up the clock to spin the hour away and I’ll see that precious imperfection and I’ll remember and be glad.

12185452_10206670954005538_4478405762614603576_o

Letting Go and Holding On

3 Replies

The massage therapist held my wrist between her fingers and tapped the muscles in my arm. “Let go…don’t try to hold your arm up…loosen up.” It may come as a surprise, gentle readers, but I sometimes have trouble relaxing and simply being present in my own body. I KNOW. Crazy.

Today was my first massage since before Carlos was born, so there was a good bit of work to do. I spend a lot more time hunched over a laptop these days, and I still have all the old twinges and squonks from a desk job. The therapist started on my right arm, my mouse clicking hand, the one with that ache right down the middle.

After three or four times of her asking me to let go with my arm, I said, “Can you tell me what TO do instead of what not to do? I’m really good at following instructions and living up to the expectations of other people, especially people I barely know.” We laughed. And she switched to guided imagery. I figured out how to let go. For a little while.

butterflies-843298_1920

I protected that loosey-goosey feeling in my neck all the way home. If I caught myself hunching up my pecs, I stretched them out and sat up straight. Let my spine hold me up.

Until that crashing sound from the kids’ bathroom.

“What happened?”

“Um…Carlos was…” Every explanation begins with “Carlos was…” They were goofing around in the bathroom and knocked “Daddy’s black cup” onto the tile floor. As I picked up the broken pieces and swept up the shards, I tried not to cry. That wasn’t Daddy’s black cup–it was Richard’s coffee mug. I could have put it away into the back of the top shelf of the cabinet, could have held on to it a little tighter. I didn’t hold on and now I’ve got to let it go.

Speaking of cabinets–when I reached for a plate for Vivi’s dinner, the entire cabinet door fell off into my hand. As it hung there by one screw, I could feel my neck tensing back up. I was forgetting how to let go, to not hold the world up with my shoulders. Granted, there was a door falling at my face, but the metaphor wasn’t lost on me. I hollered for G. He came in and helped me set it down.

Letting go, letting go, holding on and letting go. This afternoon’s drumbeat.

G sorted through the stack of mail and handed me two envelopes. A birthday card from my Wesleyan sisters and a note from Big Gay. I slid open the envelope to find another envelope inside, one with my own handwriting on the front. I recognized it immediately as a letter that I had written to Daddy 20 years ago.

He held on to it all these years. Big Gay said he kept it in a special place and read it now and then. She wants me to have it.

I’m not ready to read it yet. I’ll hold on to it for a while. Maybe read it one day when my chest is more open, when I’ve let some things go.

dewdrop-367491_1920

A Birthday Present to Myself

8 Replies

This morning, when Beth asked “What are doing for your birthday?” I told her the truth: “Lowering my expectations.” Just last year I was so delighted when Carlos said, “Happy Birfday, Mama.” I had a day filled with special kindnesses and sweet surprises.

candles-71089_1280

It’s been two weeks since my dad died. This year, I don’t want my birthday to be right now. I don’t want to think about the call I won’t be getting. Maybe in a few months, I can declare a do-over. Right now, I still need to write thank you notes for kind condolences.  There’s not much that can make me happier right now.

Except maybe cake. I mean, when I’m sad AND there’s cake, it’s not as bad as being sad without any cake. And the same goes for friends too. Sad with friends is usually better than sad and lonesome.

One lesson I’ve learned from sadness is that you have to take care of yourself. Not just survival mode–you also have to take time to delight yourself. So today, I booked myself a massage. I ordered a big box of books and music that no one else would know to buy for me, stuff like Edwin McCain, Radney Foster, The Leftovers novel, and Mary Karr’s book about memoir.

I said yes when Bryn offered to bring over dinner tomorrow night. I said yes when Nicole asked me to lunch. I told G that I couldn’t think of anything I wanted right now but maybe an adventure. I emailed the Cool Kids and set up a brunch date for this weekend. I ate one of Katie’s chocolate chip cookies with a glass of wine and a crossword puzzle on the deck. I played bongos with Carlos. I watched a few minutes of “Best In Show” and I laughed about that damn Busy Bee.

And after all that, I was still sad.

But if I turn to look over my shoulder, back over today, I can’t help but see a few bright spots. And that makes it so much easier to turn my face back to the road I find myself on.

My birthday present to myself? I keep going.

 

No This Without That

5 Replies

“What you doin’, Mama?” Carlos asked as we sat by the tadpole pond.

“Smacking mosquitos!” Then in my mind I hissed, “Take THAT, assholes!” as I smashed two in one stroke.

“McSkeetos bite you.”

Aye, laddie, they do. I am “sweet-blooded” as Quicker used to say–a mosquito will bite me before anyone else.

The weather has been absolutely perfect the last couple of days, but I don’t spend much time outside enjoying it. As our tadpoles have grown in the brown water of the old sandbox, so have the mosquito larvae. Can’t kill one without killing the other, so our crop of baby frogs has come hand in hand with a bumper crop of blood-sucking mcskeetos (kudos to Carlos for his pronunciation) this fall. I can’t wait for the first freeze to knock them out, but it might hurt Lieutenant Dan’s Frog Brigade also.

12140152_10206576904414357_8699543221386921747_o

I love watching the tadpoles grow and nibble and hop, so for now I have to put up with the cloud of mosquitos. There is no this without that.

So instead of sitting on the deck under the red leaves of the sourwood tree to have my wine, I sit inside. In this raggedy, cluttered den where Vivi is reading a Hardy Boys mystery and singing “Mama Mia” with the wrong lyrics: “Mama Mia, here we go again…my, my, just a little longer.” What the hell? Clearly, I have failed as a parent if my kid doesn’t know the words to basic ABBA songs.

There is nowhere to go in this house for a moment’s peace on a night when the kids are in moods. It’s all slamming doors, sucking fingers, and even refusing to eat tater tots. What four-year-old doesn’t eat tots? Mine, apparently. Mama mia.

After his tater tot tantrum, Carlos called me back to his room where he sat in the middle of his big boy bed that Papa made before Vivi was born. “I not mad anymore. Can I come out now? Hug?” Of course you can, my love. Tantrums and tenderness–there is no this without that. I could have a clean, peaceful house without all these kids running around…but I wouldn’t have these kids running around.

Now, when I look at that bed, I feel the new sinking hole in my chest where my dad’s death has taken up residence. I remember how excited he was to make the crib. I told him I liked quarter-sawn oak and Mission style and he was off to the workshop with wood-working magazines trailing like a cloud of dust behind him. It took months to finish the curved headboard and the narrow slats. He made extra rails so it could convert to a bed. Then he got so mad when Big Gay made him paint that beautiful oak white to match the other furniture in the nursery. And the day they hauled it over here–Daddy dropped it while loading it in the truck, scraped up the paint and was still cussing mightily hours later when they got to our house. He brought along the can of paint so we could touch up the black scrapes before the baby got here. Even after all that, we got the bed in the front door only to discover that it was too wide to make it into Vivi’s nursery…so he had to take the whole thing apart after all then reassemble it. We managed to laugh about it that day. And I’ll manage to smile about it one day when I remember. He wouldn’t have had the joy of seeing his baby grandaughter in that crib without the frustration of making it for her. There is no this without that.

12105690_10206578756820666_8730190327426889767_n

At the memorial, a friend asked me how I talked to Vivi about death since I don’t believe in any kind of afterlife (other than a general conservation of energy where we get to return to being sunlight or a nice October breeze–we are all part of one organism). I told her, “We have told her her whole life that all living things die. Our bodies are machines that wear out. Dying is part of living.”

In other words, there is no this without that.

The Day I Learned Why Dogs Howl

23 Replies

Today I remembered one rainy Saturday a few years ago when I was heading to a funeral but needed to bury Richard M. Nixon in my backyard before my toddler found out she was dead.

That’s a lot in one sentence. Let me explain.

My late husband, Richard, left me many things, but the most precious was a long-haired tortoise shell kitty cat. Her name was Nixon. Richard Milhouse Nixon, to be precise.

For a long while after he first adopted her from the shelter, he never really gave her a name–just called her Cat. He was going out of town and his neighbor agreed to keep an eye on Cat. When she asked the cat’s name, she was disappointed to hear that the cat didn’t have one. She picked at Richard about it. Because his friend was super liberal, and he was a smart ass, he said, “Fine. The cat’s name is Richard Milhouse Nixon. Please be sure to say, “I love you, Nixon” every time you snuggle her.”

He adored that cat. She helped him get “in” with my family because you know how some families ask, “Do you go to church?” or “How do you vote?”…my family asks, “Do you have any pets?” You can’t hang with the Garretts if you don’t have some shedders in the house.

This is Nixon giving my dog Katie the stink eye for being on the dog bed.

This is Nixon giving my dog Katie the stink eye for being on the dog bed.

Nixon lived for several years after Richard died, but eventually she got narrow in the hips and her gums didn’t look so healthy and her bags of groceries disappeared (that’s what Daddy called those sags of flab under a fat kitty’s belly). Nixon declined quickly. She died in her sleep and I found her one rainy Saturday morning curled up near the fireplace.

I was already feeling blue that morning because it was the day Athens would say goodbye to Randy Bewley, a musician, artist, father to two boys, and beloved of my friend, Robin. Randy had died very suddenly and it had been a sad sad week. And now Nixon was dead on my hearth and Vivi was due to wake up any minute. Crap.

I wrapped Nixon in one of Richard’s old bath towels, one that still had his name tag sewn on it from summer camp, then hid her in our bedroom. I whispered to G that I needed him to get Vivi out of the house so I could bury the cat without having to explain it all to her. He bundled her into some warm clothes and they headed out for pancakes.

It was pouring cold rain. I put on the purple raincoat that I had worn on all of those European adventures with Richard then I clutched his poor dead cat to my chest. After a quick stop in the tool shed for a shovel, I made my way down the hill to the beech tree beside the river–site of our pet cemetery. Huckleberry Finn, my big white Greater Pike Hound, walked at my side. I couldn’t keep an eye on him and focus on digging a cat grave, so I locked Huck inside the fence. He sat on his haunches to watch what I was doing.

Huck o' my Heart

Huck o’ my Heart

Well. I started digging a hole and the deeper I dug, the sadder I got. Nixon had Richard’s heart, just like I had once. She was the something he had loved and I had loved. She was part of our little family and now that last link with him was gone. I settled her light body into the earth. I ripped up a few pieces of English ivy from the riverbank and wove them into a heart shape that I placed in the grave with her.

It was time to say a few words. There in the streaming rain, I thanked her for being a sweet and faithful kitty. I told her how much he had loved her and how when he had to be away from her those last few months, I recorded five minutes of her purring and he would lie in his hospital bed and listen to it when he felt afraid. I told her that I was sorry she didn’t get more time with him.

And then I sat in the rain on my haunches and I sobbed. I wailed. I keened. I didn’t worry about any of the neighbors hearing me. I didn’t worry about whether I looked crazy or not. I didn’t care. I cried as hard as I could. For Nixon, for Richard, for Randy, for Robin, for myself. For the whole damn sad world that seemed to be crying along with me.

Then from behind me, I heard a plaintive sound I had never heard before, like a harmony to my grief. It was Huck, still waiting for me in the rain. He threw his head back and howled at the gray sky. Three long slow howls, like a wolf under a full moon. I had never heard him make such a sound and he’s never done it since.

His howling startled me out of my own fit. Our eyes met through the fence. He stood up and wagged his tail slowly at me with a look on his face that seemed to say, “Are we done? Or once more?” I couldn’t help but laugh and something in my tired heart cracked open with the wonder of his howl. Such a wild animal thing, such a mystery, right here in my backyard. I told Nixon goodbye one more time, filled in the grave, then walked back up the hill with my dog right by my side.

So why do dogs howl? I looked it up. It’s not because they are sad. According to Cesar Milan, dogs–and wolves–howl to tell a lost member of the pack where they are. A wolf who has wandered too far will howl to say, “Ummm…you guys? I’m out here alone” and another wolf howls in response to say, “You’re OK. Come over this way.”

I think that’s exactly what Huck was telling me that day. He heard a member of his pack howl because she was afraid and feeling lost, so he howled to say, “Over here. You’re not alone.”

My dad died yesterday. He spent his life tending to the little creatures of this world, the raggedy abandoned dogs like Huck and the pampered kitties like Nixon. One of my friends reminded me that all dogs go to heaven, and I laughed to think about how busy Dr. Garrett will be saying hello to thousands of old friends.