I was walking the dogs in the park the other morning, when a guy called to me from the parking lot across the street.
“The small one is trying hard to keep up.”
The small one…that’s FanCee. Yes, she’s getting older and it takes a while for her joints to limber up. Especially in the morning. I get it. I try to walk a little slower until she gets up to speed.
Her “little” brother Prince, on the other hand, can’t go fast enough. It can make going slow difficult. So much to see, so much to sniff. Horses and buggies. People on bikes. Squirrels. It’s like he has a bee buzzing in his head sometimes, instead of a brain. He urges me to pick up the pace.
But, FanCee has always been more blasé about things. The cool big sister. She has an image to maintain and she gives her brother the side-eye when he gets excited about whatever is going on around him.
“You’re embarrassing me, you big Klutz. Knock it off.”
I wave to the guy in the parking lot. I’m used to people commenting. Our two collies have become celebrities of sorts. The kids waiting for the school bus run to pet them every morning. The collies are my identity when I am out in the neighborhood. I am not recognized without them, and If I happen to leave FanCee behind, like I do sometimes when I take Prince on a really long walk (he needs it and so do I), invariably, I will be stopped and asked urgently, “where’s the other one?”
The look of relief is touching when I assure them, “Oh, she’s fine. She just decided to stay home and work on her tan in the yard today.”
The man in the parking lot called out again, “How old are they? Is the little one older?”
“Yes, she’s about 10.”
Actually, FanCee is 12, but I didn’t want to think about it or say it out loud. Especially to a stranger. It’s none of his business.
Life expectancy for collies is 12-14 years old. FanCee is officially at the age when we can reasonably expect to lose her. I am reminded of that every morning, when I have to help her down the stairs, or lately, when she skips the stairs and sleeps downstairs and it takes forever for her to get out of her dog bed.
So, I call across the street, a little defensively, “Don’t let her fool you. If she gets off the leash, she has lots of energy. We call her little Houdini.”
And that part is absolutely true. FanCee has a knack for slipping the leash. She was never a greyhound. She always lagged behind on walks. She has this little trick where she stops short without warning, lowers her shoulders and takes advantage of any slack there might be in the harness strap. If there is too much slack, the harness slips over her head. And…she’s off.
I’ve spent many an hour following her through the neighborhood with a leash. Until she finally lets me catch her.
“Ok, let’s go home. I’m pooped. That was fun, wasn’t it?”
I’ll never forget the time she pulled that stunt when we were ready to leave on vacation. The car was all packed and I’m chasing her through the neighbor’s yard.
So, I’d bet that her gimping now is still probably 40% attitude. She’s always had an abundance of that. I would take her jogging and she’d plop down on the grass in the first shade we came to, usually after just a few minutes.
Runs with FanCee were not very productive aerobically, but they were always pleasant and refreshing. Contemplative is a good word for it.
But, it’s that 60%, the physical part, that has been looming larger and larger. The sun is setting. The shadows are growing long. I can feel it. I try to brush it aside.
The man in the parking lot called, “I had a collie, growing up. Great dogs. Yours are beautiful.”
Yes, this is what usually prompts conversation when I am out with the dogs. Remembering happy times. It’s amazing the connection two collies are able to make with people, just by being themselves.
I recognize that look when people drive past us. The smile, the softening of the eyes. Even the Amish in their buggies react this way sometimes. Waving shyly at the dogs as their horses clomp past with a wary eye and nostrils flaring and Prince does his best not to embarrass his sister.
I thank the guy in the parking lot for his kind words. We go off into our respective days. FanCee trudging along circumspectly, carefully sniffing each blade of grass. Prince pulling to get to the next tree as fast as he can.
I know that am more aware of FanCee now that I am older too. My own “ending” is not the abstraction it used to be. It has a presence in my life now. Physical and tangible. FanCee’s slow steps resonate in me. Strike a familiar chord, even if the tune is only a few random notes at this point. I can name it. I know it by heart.
And with that growing awareness, comes the awareness of an improbable future. Grand and mysterious. The ending is in fact, a new beginning. That’s the way things work in life. Every ending is a new beginning.
When I walk the dogs before bed at night and look out at the stars in all their vastness, incomprehensible as it is, I suddenly realize that I am destined for somewhere beyond even the stars. More vast and incomprehensible.
My life will end, like so many of the lives I have loved. My father; my mother; my sister; my father-in-law; and most recently, my mother-in-law. The night holds them up to me like a mirror. The stars twinkling like little exclamation points.
And I think of how sober and pragmatic I have tried to be in my life. How I tried to reign in my ideals and curb my dreams.
Don’t go overboard; the warning played on a constant loop in the back of my mind most of my life. I always tried to be serious and, more importantly, to be taken seriously. With varying degrees of success.
Then you realize, standing under the stars with two dogs, that the only inescapable fact of your life, and of any life, is that it will end. Something vast and inconceivable waits in the wings.
All those dreams that I tried to suppress, all those ideas that seemed too frivolous to be taken seriously; all of them pale in comparison to the reality that surrounds me like the darkness.
And, I look out at the night while the dogs pee, and I know the night is trying to tell me something. One day, I will be ready to hear it.
For now, FanCee and I have this routine. I sit on the sofa after supper to watch the news, and she lumbers across the living room like a little freight train, working up a head of steam to jump up next to me. She has to be quick, before Prince can get there, and she usually is.
It is no small effort for her. I take it as an honor that she believes the effort is worth it. I hold my breath each time, that she will make it.
Who knows how long before this ends too. I sometimes browse dog ramps and the like on Amazon for just such a day.
We sit there together, while the news of the day and the world marches toward its dreary conclusion. I scratch her back and her body relaxes. Her eyes close and she gives a soft groan of contentment. I feel it humming under her ribs.
No, this won’t last forever. But for now, things are as they should be. And I am grateful.
Charles Oberkehr 