(5 minutes of writing anything and everything that pops into my head, as long as I keep writing.)
Yesterday I was watching Randy outside, poking around in the grass as he decided on the exactly perfect place to pee. And I found myself thinking, what do we see when we look at our pets?
It's a variable thing. Some days I see a dog. Some days I see a goofball. Some days I see an inconvenience. Yesterday I saw mortality.
Dogs and cats, no matter how long lived, are inevitably going to die before humans do. Except in cases when the human is sick or elderly and suchlike. But apart from those fine details, generally speaking, pets will die before their owners.
It's probably because of the loss of Andy that I take this pet thing a lot more seriously. Before Andy, I knew in my head that someday I would have to say goodbye to a pet, but I didn't really know it in my heart. Then Andy came along, and he was so special, and then we had to say good-bye.
I looked at Randy yesterday, and thought about how he's so young right now. He's only five years old. Still energetic and goofy and silly and demanding. I don't know what traits might mellow over the years, or even if we'd notice that they mellowed. One day I might look back and suddenly realize he no longer does X, but that assumes I'm at all observant. That's a pretty big assumption.
Yesterday, I looked at Randy, and saw a young dog who would someday be an old dog. Would he have the chance to be an old dog? Would he grow older with us, more frail, more rickety? Slow down? Or would he go away sooner than that, quickly, unexpectedly, due to disease or injury?
I saw the future as I watched him poke around the yard, trying to find the perfect place to pee. A future that is bittersweet.
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