When we were nomading around New Zealand we did a 6 week dog sitting for Amy and Brandon in Dunedin while they were back in the States. Their dog Emmitt just absolutely captured our hearts. We developed a routine with him that created stability for all of us. It was sad to leave him, but he was happy to see his family when they returned. In passing, I offered to Amy that if they ever where up doing Abel Tasman (no dogs allowed), we would be happy to watch Emmitt. Welp, she took us up on the offer!
He is 16 now, but still the same lovable dog he was in Dunedin…although like me, he doesn’t move around quite as well as he used to! We spent 9 days with him this January and he just moved right in, made himself comfortable; it was a great joy to see the old man again. I do not think we’ll get to see him again, but I was grateful to get a few more days to share our lives together.
As I have gotten older, I have really started to appreciated catching up with people that I have not seen in a long time. It is great to see how life has gone for them, to remember the connection and generally be happy to be together for a while again. When I was younger, I seemed to have a belief that I then needed something to happen — an obligation to continue seeing each other on a regular basis or something like that. However, people are busy, they have circles of friends, kids, parents, jobs and obligations that eat up most of their time.
One of the hardest things we had to do in coming to New Zealand was to leave our old dog Sadie behind. It was a bit crushing. She ended up with my sister and is living a great life in Santa Barbara. When we came back to the States the first time she was super happy to see us. As we spent time with her, I was struck by the zen-ness of a dog’s view to life. We humans probably would, at some level, spend time and energy lamenting how we were abandoned by the other person and that somehow it was a mean and cruel thing to do. Dogs on the other hand do not view the world that way. For Sadie, she was happy to see us but there was no re-litigating past decisions. She welcomed us in to her heart and enjoyed the moment of happiness we had with her. There was room in her world for our love and my sister’s. Our presence did not displace the joy of her new life, it just augmented it.
I have lost a couple friends and colleagues this year and it really has hit hard. When I think about all the things that I used to believe were important, made me angry, frustrated or anxious, they start to seem pretty meaningless in the scope of our short time on this planet. Clearly there are phases of our life that require different things from us, but in the end we all must be more like dogs and create room in our hearts for everyone, even if they are just passing through.
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