A thread

I’m having a hard time with the reality of my dog’s surgery next Thursday. He’s 14 but healthy enough to go under anesthesia. The surgery is small, the surgeon’s hands skillful, but I waver on verge of nervous and pleading tears all day. Please. Please, don’t take my dog. 

I never thought my 14 year old rescue dog would outlive my dad, but he did.

And this dog, this rescue mutt from Texas, shepherded me through the sickness, and the long shadow of grief as my constant companion.

I see my dog and I think of my father, frail but skin yellowed and stretched too far over the center until he looked a bit like the moon. Think of that last hug at the hospital, the goodbye that wasn’t supposed to be forever. Crying and trying not to cry. 

Holding my father in a hug like maybe I could hold him to Earth.

And failing.

I think, I’m not ready for my shepherd to go out like that. Not ready to drop him off for that final goodbye that isn’t supposed to be a final goodbye. The threads of this grief are tangled, coiled so tight into a dark tapestry, that little as I am I cannot reach my arms around. It blankets everything in the shadow of loss.

I cannot lose my dog because my father died. Because there should be a limit on how much the universe can take before it owes restitution.