Never Did Like Differenting

And Irish wisdom tea

Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad.
~ Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

I’m writing this a few days after losing my dog to old age. She was my constant companion, my source of comfort, company, mayhem, and joy. Everything she did was so large-scale that people meeting her for the first time would exclaim, “She’s so small! 

Though small in size, everything else about her was mighty, including her disapproval of differenting, a term I believe she made up.

One did not just change things willy-nilly. If you were going out you told a beagle, with a specific ritual and routine. People sat in certain chairs, and if they decided to change that up there would be some discussion, and possibly some light booping if the discussion was ignored.

When ordering take-out, absolutely one did not choose a salad as a side, even if one preferred salads, because the one without thumbs and therefore unable to order for herself despised salads but lived for fries. Woe be it to she who differented that one on a whim.

Since she’s been gone, the differenting around here has been staggering. The rituals she trained are hard to break, but serve no purpose any more. I’ve never liked French fries, and threw out an entire portion the other night, ordered by mistake out of habit.

Friends have sent or brought lovely flowers and little things. They’ve called or stopped by to check on me, and they, too, have the wind knocked out of them by her absence. We squirm at our ability to leave our plates unguarded when we get up. With or without company, I’m walking the long, lonely arc of grief that there is no way out of but through.

That’s the way this works.

But the thing about a great dog and a great friend is that you both put back into the tree what you take out of it.

We were both kind of a mess when we met, both had been torn unwillingly from the lives we knew, both uprooted and disoriented. Neither one of us thought the other one was all that. Very quickly we discovered that we shared a certain outlook, if not always the same approach. 

Over the years, in place of two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, and a pair of good-luck pennies, we gave each other trust, comfort, adventure, and some of the most fun imaginable. We shared and gave others love and laughter and perspective and opportunity. We gave each other such a life together.

I ache deeply, I lose my breath, and I miss her more than I can bear sometimes. But we gave each other everything.

I’m so very happy I found you, Beagz. 

If you’d like to read a little about her, I wrote something here at Dear Goddamned Dog.

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Morning Teaistisms

I haven’t felt like eating anything at all these last days - the only up side to true heartbreak. I say things like, “I want miso soup,” but kind people then get me miso soup and I can’t eat it.

Last night I ordered cupcakes, because I said, “I want cupcakes.” Despite my many flaws, I always try to do what I say. I couldn’t eat them, either.

I’ve pretty much been surviving on Irish Breakfast tea with lots of sugar and milk. It does all the things that sustain you until you want to keep going again, and all the Irish death and sorrow sayings are in every sip.

May the road rise up to meet you, may your table legs be short, may your plates be left unattended, and may French fries come with every order.