Be Still

August 27, 2008

I never have a video camera when I need it, and that's why I haven't won the grand prize on America's Funniest Home Videos.

Most of the time I have to walk Willie on a leash to keep him from bolting across the fence into the "rifleman's" property. [NOTE: The "rifleman" shot our neighbor's 12-year-old golden retriever at 3:00 in the morning a few months ago, stripped his collar, and dumped his body about two miles down Leonard Road towards the river. It made everyone in the neighborhood extremely angry, but I think we are all a bit intimidated by a nut who would kill a family pet in the middle of the night with a deer rifle.] Parts of our walk he can roam free, but the closer we return to home the more urgent my desire to have him on the end of the leash.

Last weekend it seemed especially unfair to leash him. Teddy and Uma were cavorting around freely (since they don't cross the fence), and we had picked up Willie's friend Tommy-Girl (who was also cavorting or perhaps more accurately parading her female wares) as we passed the far side of the lake. But I'm no softie. I clipped the leash on to his collar and proceeded up the road. It is one way I add to my fitness regimen: holding him in my grip as he lunges and throws his seventy pounds in various directions trying to play as with his friends and hie after Mrs. Bun. I soldiered forward, bent forward with the leash playing back over my shoulder. I tried to channel Ernest Hemingway bringing in a worthy fish. I struggled forward, not making much headway. I looked behind and figured out why Erin was laughing so hard. Willie and Tommy-Girl were having marital relations at the end of my leash, and I was dragging them both down the road. Talk about dead weight. It brought a whole new perspective to walking the dog.

Oh well, it's just a story to take your mind off of scans tomorrow. If luck is on our side, things will run smoothly. We'll hear good results on Friday, and start round six of irinotecan and temador next week. If not, then we will continue the process of fighting Erin's cancer in another direction. And so I tell myself, you can't control everything. Hell, you can't even control your dog when he's at the end of his leash. The best thing is to be still and open to the possibilities that you encounter.