Time for a Change

When my first husband died, I had some well-intentioned friends who suggested that I get a pet, possibly a dog. While I was grateful they did not ask for his golf clubs (see “Don’t ask for the dead man’s golf clubs” book), I was reluctant to take their advice.

After a few weeks of considering their thoughts, I took the plunge. Well, I say plunge, because we got a fish and a ten gallon tank instead. We actually bought two. The first goldfish we named Vern, after an old curmudgeon, but a lovely gentleman, that I knew from the Oregon Coast. The second we named Speedy, named by Davis’ because if fish could fly through water, this one appeared to do so.

In the ensuing years that we cleaned tanks, prayed over their deaths, and replaced these fish with a few new ones, I was grateful that I had not gotten a dog. There are many risk-takers out in the world. I believe myself to be one of them. I am always trying out new species of plants and was the first to utilize the fiber optic grass in my tribal head pot bought for me years ago. I ran hurdles in high school, and traveled with the college ski club to Colorado without knowing a soul. But I am not a risk taker when it comes to animals, or shall I say, anything other than a human being, or a plant.

So, it comes with some surprise that I found, now was the time to have a dog. I have no concrete reasons other then that when I sit on the kitchen floor with tears in my eyes from a sadness I am experiencing, I comprehend why this dog was put in my life.

Enzo was named after a character in a book who sat with the owner’s wife while she fought cancer. And sometimes, I project this same quality onto my Enzo. When he does sense in me, a sadness, he will engage in eye to eye contact, of course he does this when he has been bad, or is trying to be cute, but nonetheless, his rich chocolate eyes remind me of earth and grounding. And there is a part of me that whispers, namaste, to him – the divine in you honors the divine in me.

I hold Enzo some mornings after the kids leave, and cry for a sister who is in mental and physical pain and for her daughter, my niece, who does not understand why the world asks this of her young soul. And sometimes tears well up because I think Enzo could have shouldered some of my sadness from years ago when Devin died yet I was too stubborn to give in to the notion of dog. I hold onto Enzo and his innocence, as if I am still holding on to some piece of my sister spirit that has been kept safe from harm.

I pray that Enzo can help change my heart. A heart that has become hardened, a heart that no longer holds my faith in God, the justice system. A heart that can only open itself up to the human condition and this little furry animal that a fish could never replace. Maybe I don’t really need a change of heart, I just need help turning it right side up again so that all of life does not run out me. I hope Enzo is strong enough for the both of us.