Pet Pensiveness

We had to euthanize a family pet yesterday, a 55 pound labrador mix we named Molly. Molly had a great many qualities one looks for in a dog: she was submissive, rarely barked except when asked to or when she thought she was defending us. She was as attached to us as we were to her.

When we first found her, she was said to be the last of her litter - a runt no one else chose. We were told her other parent may have been a shepherd mix, but whatever her heritage she bore an uncanny resemblance to an oversized Finnish Spitz.

Molly had a sort of melancholy disposition from the start, as if she had felt abandoned. As she grew up we found her to be calm, obedient, and sociable on one hand, but when she switched it on her playfulness was almost wolf-like.

My waking moments were filled with memories, and one simple thought. So many people try to focus out on vanishingly distant, imaginary end-points, seeking rigid modes of thinking and to maintain narrow perpectives, racing so hard and fast yet giving so little thought to where they are going - under these conditions the lateral realities that pervade and indeed ground our lives become a blur that is easier to ignore.