Lost and Found

He could have collapsed outside—alone. I wonder how long it would have taken me to discover him. Instead he found me. He was barking at squirrels when I left him. Those damn squirrels tormented him—but for a dog that rarely used his words I think it must have felt good to yell once in awhile. On that sunny warm day in June, I’m sure he wished he could have barked a long time, but instead he found me.

I never gave it a second thought when I left him on the deck and went inside the house to do some work. I knew he would eventually find me. In his senior years, when his hearing was failing, I could often hear him trotting from room to room looking for me. He always found me. In retrospect there’s no surprise that he collapsed at my feet. It was his last act of love. I didn’t know I was lost.

The upside of being lost is that no one can see you. The downside of being lost is that no one can see you. Life on All Fours, is now live and on-line. Even though it’s fiction, the whole process of writing this book is about being found—turns out being found requires acts of love from others. Thank you Rufus and a host of other "others."

My parents want to read my book. Why is that parents often represent parts of ourselves that are afraid of being discovered? This book will make some people uncomfortable—there are parts that will make me uncomfortable knowing they are being read. It’s not easy to collapse at someone’s feet—and reveal things we hoped no one would ever see. But ironically that act has the potential to not only bring me out of hiding but others as well. Rufus was never afraid of being seen, whether sticking his wet nose in peoples’ faces, humping his pillow during dinner parties, or collapsing at my feet in the last hour of his life, he understood that love doesn’t live alone or in shadow, it thrives in the places where we can see and be seen.

---