Notes dated June 24, 2011…

The dog keeps trying to squeeze between me and my laptop, laying her head on the keypad, pawing at my hands. I think it’s because we just saw the ophthalmologist to talk about the future of the one eye she has left.   It’s a very big deal, so maybe she’s anxious.  Maybe she’s overwhelmed by the finite nature of it all, wondering how ten years of living so vividly, suddenly becomes a handful memories fading like her eyesight.

I wonder what she thinks about the dimming of the light. I mean,  here’ll come a time when each of us is desperately trying to magnify his own flashes of memory, recall the fading colors, searching for confirmation, praying that we’ve done right by those we loved the most.  The Power of the Universe will not measure us by the thoughts in our heads nor hopes in our hearts, but by what we actually did with what we’d been given.

Did our eyes see broadly enough? Did we look for signs of redemption? Reflect compassion?  Did our ears hear bravely enough? Could our shoulders, these shoulders, be leaned upon, did these arms hold, did my hands hold the hands that need to be held?  How will I know if I was even worth the time that I have used up, and what if I wasn’t, what have I done, what has been squandered?

I look back down at Bessie. She’s staring up at me, as though she’s asking for something. It’s something I’m just I’ve got.  I don’t know what to do with these questions: they’re so much bigger than I feel right now.

But, then I take another look and wonder: “on second thought, she might just want to rub her belly.”