Love and Lament in Surprising Co-Existence

I have gotten into the habit, of late, of taking Tir to work with me -- Tir being our new Welsh Corgi puppy.  Admittedly, the church office isn't the best or most appropriate setting for house-training a puppy, but the prospect of driving back and forth between church and home every couple of hours for the  necessary "walks" seemed impractical and a poor use of time.  In addition, then, to the desk and the book shelves and the conferencing cluster of chairs, a portable kennel.  Several times each day I bundle up, attach the leash, dash down the back stairs and out the sidewalk door where we bustle around the next door lawn and the near neighborhood, getting a little exercise.  So to speak.


This has been going on since that Wednesday morning in early December when we brought him back to Des Moines from his birth home in Stratford.  I would like to report that he is becoming quite religious as a result of all this holy exposure, but the environment doesn't really seem to be rubbing off on him.  He bites hands and snaps at pant legs; he unties shoes, talks back and seems fairly unrepentant about his occasional accidents.  Maybe if he were baptized.  Meanwhile, he enjoys kibitzing with the staff and the office volunteers who think he is adorable despite his bad habits.  Truth be told, I think he is pretty darn cute as well, and I have been known to want to bite some people, myself.  So maybe the humbler confession is that, while the office isn't rubbing off on him, I seem to be.

This week, however, I am gone.  In anticipation, my co-workers were quite frank about their anticipation that, though I would hardly be missed, Tir certainly would be.  The portable kennel, in other words, is empty this week, and quiet.  In my absence, my beloved and indulging wife is picking up my slack.  Tir is her full time responsibility -- morning, noon, and night.  Her office, however, not being quite so amenable to co-habitation, she is making the repetitive trips back and forth on his behalf. 

There is a sense, I confess, of almost luxuriant freedom in being away.  There is, after all, a constancy to his dependance, and snowy winter days are not the most agreeable time to be traipsing in and out of doors.  That said -- and no one could be more surprised at this than me -- I rather miss it.  I miss his nuzzling cuddle when I pick him up from a lazy nap.  I miss chaperoning his sociable curiosity about the various passersby outside on their way to class.  I miss the little regimens of forced exercise throughout the day.  I miss the bonding lap time and looking up, from time to time, and simply catching the melting site of him across the way. Simply put, I miss him.  Over some small measure of inner resistance, I have fallen in love with him -- despite the darker sides of his puppiness.

The honest truth is I wasn't ready to have another dog.  I was still too deep in the grief over losing one, and bringing home another one so soon felt a little like violation; like desecration; like trying to artificially or mechanically fill a craterous hole.

What I have found, however, is that my grieving quite naturally co-exists with my new loving -- neither negating the other; in fact, both honoring and blessing the other.  It helps, of course, that despite their similar appearance, they couldn't be more different.  Each is his own personality; each his own unique and commanding spirit.  Neither is a cipher for the other.  Both demand and claim their own attentions.  Without contradiction, both laughter and tears, memory and joy, absence and presence occupy this common space, miraculously and mysteriously capacious enough to comfortably accommodate it all.

Guilty, then, over all the extra effort to which I am subjecting Lori during this personal time away, I am, at the same time, foolishly jealous.  What a delight it will be to find my way home...

...to them both.