All Good Things

I had to say goodbye to another friend this week. Saj, sometimes referred to in this blog as "Lab" has gone on to better fields and ponds and more plentiful tennis balls and squirrels to chase than we could ever dream of. She was thirteen. By conventional wisdom that made her ninety-one in human years, and yet she still had a streak of puppy-like enthusiasm up until even her last days.

We got Saj (pronounced "Sage") on New Years Eve 1999. The ridiculous spelling of her name I place solely on the shoulders of my sister, who was so incensed that I came up with the best name for the puppy that she insisted on adding her "creative" (cough cough) flair to the name by throwing together random letters and assigning them to the sounds made by the word "Sage" (think Gob Bluth from "Arrested Development.")

She was five weeks old when she came home - too young, really, but her mother stopped feeding the pups and she came home with us and assumed for years that she was human. She played the part well, but not flawlessly. Setting aside the four leggedness, and the persistent facial hair, she was too loving, too loyal, too faithful, and too eager to please to ever pass as truly human. It is in some ways astounding she lived to the age she did. When she was six months old or so we came home to find her carrying my mother's brand new dogwood sapling around the yard in her mouth like a chew toy, happy as you please. Lab's, if you have never lived with one, are a force of nature - particularly in puppyhood. Saj was no exception.

She was my dog only for a short time - I left for college, and she stayed home. I visited, and I loved her dearly, but by the time I was in a position to take her with me she belonged to the whole family equally, and it would have been unfair to take her into a crummy college apartment. She was the epitome of a family dog.

We brought Beagle to meet Saj the day the Wife and I adopted him more than six years ago. Despite a rough beginning in which Saj tried to eat Beagle, the two of them became... if not friends, precisely, at least companions. Beagle was all dog where Saj still held on to the illusion that she was mostly human. Beagle taught her to embrace her inner dog, to play with toys, to roughhouse and play with other animals. Saj taught Beagle very little, because he is a beagle, and too stubborn to learn anything much. He did at least learn to stay out of the reach of bigger, less patient dogs. As I write this I am looking at a picture of the two of them sharing Saj's pillow. You can only see their heads in the photo, but as was typical of their relationship, Beagle is undoubtedly stretched out to take up the maximum amount of space on the oversized pet bed, and Saj has her head alone on the pillow beside him. Saj was a giver. Beagle's a jerk. We love them both.

I will miss my lab. I didn't want to make this a terribly somber post, because it's somber enough that she's gone without adding to it. Dog's lives are so much shorter than ours I sometimes wonder if bringing them into our lives is worth the inevitable pain it brings. But I don't wonder for long. The answer is yes. If everyone in the world could strive to be the type of person their dog believed them to be, what a fantastic world would we live in? They love freely and ask little in return. A ball, a bowl, a bed, and a little love.

The title of this post refers to the phrase "All good things must come to an end." The problem with the phrase (besides being the title to a rather weak ending to Star Trek, the Next Generation) is that I don't entirely agree. I won't get into the theological debate about pets and heaven, and I'd thank you to not share your own thoughts on this forum. As with many theological issues, I like C.S. Lewis' take, and that's all I'll say. But I do not believe the good that came from Saj's life has come to an end. You were and are loved Saj, and our lives are better for you, and you continue to share in that. Rest easy girl.

Musings upon my imminent deterioration (happy birthday...to....me)

"Thirty is just a number," he said, weeping openly into his scotch glass.

No, seriously, thirty is just a number. As ages go, it's one day older than twenty-nine.

Most of the people I thought of as "old" when I was "young" still consider thirty to be quite a youthful age.

But then, they've aged a lot since then.

If it's not clear to you yet, I've just turned thirty. Despite my rather morbid title, I really haven't been terribly bothered by the "milestone" birthday. Maybe it hasn't sunk in yet. Maybe the fact that my daughter's birthday present to me was to decide depriving me of her presence at 2 a.m. was unacceptable, and I was too tired to care about turning thirty. But the fact is, thirty really doesn't feel that much different from twenty-nine. Twenty-two? Yeah, a little different. Sixteen? Sure, lots more energy back then. Three months old? I only vaguely remember, but I'll take it as a given that there's a difference. But the subjective difference between twenty-nine and thirty is negligible.

And I find that rather odd.

See, in the back of my mind, I always sort of pictured thirty-somethings as... well... adult. Twenty-somethings are party-animals, drunks, spendthrifts, and dreamers with no real prospects. You know - college students. Thirty, though, was supposed to be the beginning of adulthood. I don't know why I assigned such significance to this number. Probably as an excuse to enjoy my twenties more. But, as stated previously, I don't really feel any different.

I don't think I expected to magically have all the answers by virtue of seniority, but back in the dark ages of my adolescence, I sort of thought that one day I'd stop having to wing it. That maybe I'd get the important stuff down. And yet, here I am. No different than I was a week ago, except that I need to shave.

By any objective measure I can think of, I'm about as adult as you can get. I've got a wife, a baby, a job, a mortgage, one and a half dogs, and Cat. I commute and listen to NPR because the rock station plays the crap today's kids listen to. And it is crap. I work behind a desk, and mostly enjoy what I do. I get excited about home improvement projects and ask for practical Christmas presents. I go to happy hours out of professional obligation, and leave by seven so I am home to see my baby girl before she has to go to bed.

And yet, most of the time, I still feel like a kid dressing up in his dad's suit. (I'm speaking metaphorically here, but as it happens my closet is about half hand-me-downs from my dad. Just FYI. That's how I roll.) I don't have all, or even a big fraction of the answers. I can't even manage most of the simple stuff on my own - stains are my nemesis, and my wife has to throw out my old  underwear to keep me from wearing stuff that has worn down to nothing but elastic bands. As excited as I get about home improvement projects, I am very fortunate I have not burned down our house. Not kidding. I'm really just kind of faking it through this whole "adult" phase until I start to get a handle on things.

Thirty hasn't changed much in that regard. But I suppose not having all the answers keeps life from getting dull. Like the old proverb says, "May you live in interesting times." I know I do.