Category: For the love of a dog

January Month in Review — Yes, I Can Believe It’s February Already

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You know how every time the calendar flips to a new page, there’s always a chipper collective “I can’t believe it’s [month, season, or year] already!”

I can. January was 6,000 days long this year.

Polar vortexes, minor sorrows from the minors, an ill child every so often, returning to routines without holidays to anticipate. You know, the grind.

But not all bad things.

We went to a water park resort for a week, which I’ll post about here soon. I made some peanut butter cookies that I can only describe as “disappointing,” which was pretty flipping weird. I mean, they’re peanut butter cookies.

pbc
Even a nice dip into a ganache spa didn’t elevate them much. (Didn’t keep us from eating all of them in 24 hours, either.)

Oh, wait, not all bad things.

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When Children Break Your Heart

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Two days ago we said goodbye to our dog, George. You can read about how ill he’s been here, if you wish.

I won’t go into details of his final days. Or his eleven years. Not now. I’ve been writing between tears, though, trying to capture every detail, every memory, every feeling. That’s been both cathartic and awful. But I need to put it to paper. For someday.

I know that this almost unbearable grief means that we loved George and he loved us. Uncomplicated. Pure. Utterly fuzzy.

It’s been a shit year, personally and politically, but this dog has, as always, been a constant. His moods. His needs. His sweet face. His ability to absorb a hug, sigh, and then put his head back down as if to say, “It’s all going to be ok. Now please let me nap.”

The last 48 hours have clarified how much this dog has woven himself into our hearts, our lives, and our routines.

After dropping the kids off at school today, I put my purse on the counter next to this.

 

I’d been doing so well, too. Looks a little like a heart, doesn’t it?

Right after George passed away, the twins were processing, each in their own way. They wrote a little eulogy on the whiteboard we keep in the play area. I didn’t get a picture before they wiped it away in grief but it said, “George. Born July 4, 2006. Died December 19, 2017. Rest in peace and fuzz.”

My daughter spent a part of her day on Tuesday making a card for her brother.

In case you can’t read Kindergarten, it says “Hope you feel better Logan*. I love you.” That green blob on the left is the dog, and the blue lines with pink dots are his angel wings. Written in the angel wings are “Miss You.”

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how children break your heart. With their goodness and their grief — I can’t take the credit for the first, and I cannot do much to alleviate the second, but I am grateful for these three little people.

And for a dog who filled these last eleven years with simple love.

 

*The fact that she spelled it “Login” is the greatest thing ever.

Loaf Pans, Sweet Aromas, and Metaphors in Winter

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This morning I’m making pumpkin bread, ostensibly for my son who’s home with a cold, but mostly because I want to fill the house with the aroma of ginger, cloves, and nutmeg. Comfort. Care. Sweet.

Of late, the home has smelled of sick dog and not-so-homemade meals. The smells of exhaustion.

The pumpkin bread recipe has different baking times for different loaf pan sizes. 8×4 or 9×5.

My loaf pan, browned from years of lightly greasing and flouring, is 8.5×4.5

No joke.

Not quite here, not quite there. Close enough.

That’s how I feel these days, in this place, at this time. Maybe, in many ways, I always have.

It’s a not-entirely-comfortable feeling. No one wants to feel out-of-place.

No, that’s not right.

Out-of-step. I feel slightly out-of-step. Slightly mis-sized. Needing a little finagling to mingle with the other, uh, loaf pans. A different shelf or a little twisting here and there.

On my counter right now is a beautiful, perfectly baked, aromatic loaf of pumpkin bread. Due to the irregular size, it needed more observing, more tending, more awareness than other loaves…more wiggle room and patience than allowed for in the suggested time ranges. It took more than the 52-57 minutes. It took adjusting the oven. It took years of experience to know by sight and smell when it was close to done, and by the quality of crumb on the toothpick that it was.

There’s a lesson there that I choose to apply to myself on these days when the light is fleeting and the year fades into promises for the future. On these days when we hear no and why and you’ve got to be kidding me, on the days when self-care — the soulful kind, not the chocolate kind — is needed, on the days when the fight for rights and beliefs and humanity seems ever needy and urgent…on these days it’s ok to find the metaphor wherever we can.

Even if the metaphor is that there will always be crumbs.