Dog is God Spelled Backwards*

Is that spelling a coincidence? I don’t think so.

I’m looking at my old dog sleeping on the couch next to my computer table. Sadie’s face and paws are white with age. She has fatty lumps under her skin, and unattractive moles around her eyes. The teeth she has left are stained and her breath is bad. She is deaf as a post, and that makes her skittish, so she barks a lot. But her voice is damaged, and her bark sounds more like a soft, hoarse woof. When she gets up, her back legs are stiff and she sometimes falls. Her digestive system is, shall we say, delicate.

I think back over fourteen years of her companionship. She has been my constant buddy, even going to work with me many days, where she would sleep under my desk by my feet or wait patiently by my office door for me to take her for a walk in the park next to my building. At night she sleeps with me. She starts the night at the foot of the bed, but during the night she gets cold, so she leans over me like Snoopy and pokes me with her paw until I lift up the covers and she scoots under, curling up behind my knees where I’m sure she will suffocate, but she never does.

I think back to her puppy days, when my children were people puppies. My daughter would dress her up and put her in the doll stroller. Sadie would look at me with mournful eyes as I laughed and took photos. James would dance with her. She was happiest when we were all at home. She always had a person to lean up against, confirming the description of her breed as Velcro dogs.

I’ve not always been as good to her as she has been to me. There have been days too cold or rainy for my liking, so the leash remained on top of the refrigerator. There have been times when the ball dropped by my feet repeatedly has just as repeatedly been ignored. There have been times when I impatiently hurried her along when smells too wonderful to believe beckoned from the foliage.

And yet she has never turned her back on me. She has never been cranky or irritable. She has never ignored my overtures of affection. She overlooks my shortcomings and dismisses my imperfections. She is always glad to see me and is always sad to see me go. As many times as I have failed her, she has forgiven me, without hesitation and without asking for an apology. She never brings up my past transgressions.

Her forgiveness is as pure and generous as a child’s. Without judgment or complaint. She reflects back to me a vision of myself as lovable and loved.

What could I possibly have done to deserve such grace? Nothing.

Oh Lord, help me see myself the way my dog sees me. –Unknown

*This only works in English.

related posts: A Child Will Lead Them; For Today, Newly Bright; Canine Theology

Please note that I will be away from my computer for a long weekend, so I hope you will excuse any delay in publishing your valued comments.