Peaches on my Shoulder

My family is mourning a loss this week. Our very good canine friend Timber was terribly afflicted by severe neurological problems that left him unable to walk and function normally. We've always done everything we can to provide the best life for him and there was only one way left for us to help him. On Sunday Nicole and I had to make one of the toughest calls in our marriage and we asked his doctor to ease him out of this life.

Timber was my wing man on (not nearly enough) random trips in the car, my all-star Frisbee receiver, and my guaranteed daily welcome wagon when I came home from work. He taught me valuable life lessons such as how to be excited about mundane things like going for a ride, going to the park, and getting a new 95 cent squeaky ball. He was able to show an amazingly high amount love even through pain, and an amazingly low amount of judging even when I had behaved badly. He never once growled at me out of anger, even when I was a jerk to him. Timber-dog is and will be sorely missed.

These kinds of times are best handled by trying to find some kind of lesson to be learned. For me, this experience has reminded me of of the swift passage of time and the tendency to let the minutes and hours that make up days and weeks slip through my fingers.

This morning as I left for work I almost forgot to give my two-year old little cutie Sydney a hug and kiss as I ran out the door. She was eating breakfast and happily stopped eating when she saw me turn around. Her arms were as wide as her grin as I went back for a big love. As I got closer I noticed that her hands were greasy from toast and were covered with smashed up peaches.

I almost recoiled back as I thought about going to work with buttery peach-goo on the shoulder of my clean work shirt. But then I thought about Timber. He didn't care at all about goo on his fur coat (he sorta liked it, in fact). So today I'm proudly wearing peaches on my shoulder. In five years I'll go to work with clean shirts and I bet I'll miss it.