Faced with the choice of going to great lengths to keep our aging pup comfortable, I had to ask myself a hard question one day a while back. In the grand scheme of things, in the balance of human and pet lives, how much is my doggy in my window, the one with the waggly tail, really worth anyway?
Overseas, desperate human strife abounded, begging another question: in a world where human life is increasingly dispensable, and animal life increasingly revered, ought Christ-followers not remind themselves that humans come first? That as much as we value our pets, we must allow God the right to divert our resources, when he sees fit, toward greater human needs? And that sometimes, it all must stop?
Not easy questions for a dog lover.
A few days before, in the pale light of dawn, Mindy - almost nineteen human years - cried in her bed. Never a yapper, Mindy rarely made a sound. But of late, her laments had ululated through our home's sleeping stillness like ghostly vapors.
I got up, as I had for weeks on end, to lead her out of the washroom, where she slept at night for ease of morning-clean-up of her senior weaknesses.
Lumbering against walls, she nosed her way down the hall, sniffing the floor. In the living room, she stood still, her head pivoting to fireplace, chair, footstool, window. Pausing at each spot.
Though age had rendered Mindy's eyes and ears almost useless, she seemed to be taking a lingering look over the place she'd called home for all but her first few years. She had done this the evening before, too. Sat on the porch, turning her head slowly from street to sky, from sky to car, from car to house. Recalling, maybe, happily lived sights and sounds: cars passing, children's laughter, my husband's shrill whistle. Appreciating the only sense she still seemed to have in abundance - the smells of late dinners, woodsmoke from the neighbours' chimneys, the lingering fragrance of her own unique trademark on the snow.
I've often told family and friends who wonder when it's time to say farewell to things they've loved: "You'll know it's time when the pleasure of keeping it is less than the pain of losing it."
Under her silky grey bangs, Mindy seemed to know it was time. Under mine, I did too. "Come on, old girl," I said, picking her up.
I don't think I've ever had a harder time making an appointment - and certainly, never had a harder time keeping one. But keep it we did, Mindy, the Preacher, and I, and afterwards carried her body home to be buried with dignity, in gratitude for almost two decades of lively companionship.
In the grand scheme of things, in the balance of human and pet life, how much was my doggy in my window, the one with the waggly tail, really worth anyway? An awful lot. But humanity still carries the trump card - because God says so.
