| It's late
December, and Hedy's boys are nearing eight months of age. Yesterday, their ma turned
five. She's gone to spend the New Year's holiday with friends -- just as many humans do
when celebrations are upon them; it's good to shed one's old skin and try on a new future,
whether that entails making resolutions while sipping champagne from a crystal flute or
simply lying by a warm hearth in anticipation of supping from an elevated stainless steel
dish. :-) Left behind are Thacher and
Jack. They marked their dam's rite of passage by ripping the innards from a much treasured
toy, and sniffing Hedy's nether quarters in confused delight; she's in season, and the
fruit of her loins have found renewed interest in their mother -- something they haven't
experienced since the time, months ago, when her milky spigots held them in thrall.
But this evening, mama's away and the boys
are in for novelty. While Rose snoozed in her crate and darkness covered the frigid winter
landscape in northern Virginia, Thacher and Jack, having eaten well and riotously (as they
always do) emerged into the back yard to be greeted with an anomalous sight in their short
days on earth -- the pelting of soft, silver snow.
I well recall their half sister Rose's
initial acquaintance with the same. As I reported to the Boxer Mailing List nearly two
years ago, my small red brindle soul, in her utter excitement, ended that first encounter
by flying up the back porch stairs and, lacking necessary traction due to the icy
conditions, by smashing her already sufficiently mushy mush into the back door. But the
behavior at her first glimpse of it -- the sudden realization that something visibly
taunting yet fine moved gently earthward to touch her lightly with chilly fingers -- seems
to be universal, in my boxers anyway. This night, as then, the boys greet the frozen
cascading confection with pure amazement. They lift their chins and, finding their eyes
filled with fallen crystal, blink hard as it does a disappearing act on iris and nostril
and paw. Now they see it, now they don't. It's there, yet, in a sparkling second, no
longer. |
But
as the temperature continues to fall, and the adolescents gallop and cavort to warm
themselves against the onset of deep night, the spectral visitor changes its mind.
Becoming comfortable, perhaps, with being known, the snow sheds its cloak of invisibility
and tiny, fragile flakes create a communion of sorts, filling the dents in earth, reaching
to one another, lying together in a blanket for the frozen land. And once it's covered the
ground sufficiently, Jack and Thach discover that snow has yet another purpose: It's for
rearranging, for shuffling about in with noses unaccustomed to the bite of this particular
cold that attaches itself when touched, for snorting and sniffing and sneezing when
inadvertently inhaled. All of life is
wonder for dogs this young; every season brings special blessing in its uniqueness. In
spring, it will be delectable buds that would better remain on twig or stem, but
temptation will be too great. In winter, it's frozen precipitation that captures their
curiosity. With this sudden surprise the new year approaches for my boys.
In this same new year, one will leave me;
he'll find a new home. Which pup it will be, I don't yet know. But it will be a departure
full of promise, unlike those that some of us will experience in that same year --
leavings that will not be beginnings, but losses.
As it is with the winter solstice and the
undeniable approach of spring, dark turns back into light, ice to flowing water and pain
to smiling reminiscence; it's the way of this world.
A New Year's resolution, then, as nothing
is permanent on astonishing earth: To be newly grateful for those who love us, whether
canine or human, in the time we're together; forgive them the moments when we don't
perceive it, and trust they'll do the same for us. There may be no more meaningful
sacrament of the season. |
