Borrowing the Will of the Dog

This morning, for the first time since our dog Macey died, I went on a brisk walk down our road, where she and I used to walk. I had woken up all stiff this morning, most likely from spending half the night with a restless baby attached to me. I needed to loosen up, and a walk and hot shower do wonders. Outside the morning was chilly and the sun had a beautiful slant through the trees. . . and I missed my dog. She and I had walked together for her entire life, daily for the first few years, then later on several times a week. There would be periods every now and then when I did not walk her for months at a time, like when I put myself on bedrest at the end of my pregnancy with B, or when I fell and tore that ligament in my knee and took a loooooooong time to heal. But whenever all was well, Macey and I were walking companions, and I loved seeing her pad pad energetically in front of me, tail curled high, ears forward, eyes alert for squirrels or cats. Her shadow to the side looked like a fairy-tale wolf.

I missed her most today when I was walking back along the same road home. I was suddenly just so tired and it was hard to make myself keep the aerobic pace on the way back. It brought to mind a line from the movie "Awakenings," in which a doctor experimenting with apparently catatonic patients found they would catch a ball tossed to them. He theorized that, having no will of their own to move, they "borrowed the will of the ball" for that moment.

Macey was so strong that she would gladly and almost effortlessly pull you when the road was steep (very helpful along trails in CO). I jokingly called her "the Macey train," as in "jump on aboard" because she could pull more than one tired person along at a time. But I never realized how much I depended on her just to get me going, and keep me going, psychologically too.

Walking won't be the same for a while.