In memorium: Zoë the wonder dog.

 

 

 

Sometimes we don't know how blessed we are. I ached when my goats left, but it was all for the best. Last Friday the house caught fire while I was away. It was an old house, over 200 years old, so it went up like a tinderbox. I lost Zoë, my lovely, happy little Fox Terrier, and I am mourning her loss, praying that she was curled up on her favorite chair and succumbed to smoke rather than flames.

The recliner was verbotten, but sometimes Zoë just couldn't help herself.

I always marveled at the many ways Zoë could settle herself, flopping here, drooping there,now stretching, now sinking, always her own definition of comfort.

I have a lovely picture of her in my mind, racing madly through the house, jumping onto the mini-trampoline and jumping off, racing madly back, bouncing on and off, over and over again; barking when I was bouncing on it and wanting to take part, so excited. Zoë loved to bounce, bounced whenever she got excited, and oh, how excited she became at night when she could have that delight of all delights--a carrot! All my dogs have liked carrots, but Zoë loved, loved, loved them.

The blessing part is that I have no livestock to care for, no water to haul in the freezing cold, no wrestling with flashlights in a dark barn. It's hard to know what would have happened had I still had goats: perhaps I would have been there when the fire started, perhaps there wouldn't have been a fire, perhaps... But it's all speculation and counts for nothing. What is, is now, and though I mourn Zoë's loss, I will always carry her in my mind and in my heart. 

Another ending

I had a dream 2 or 3 nights ago that the farmhouse burnt down. I awoke and shuddered and prayed that it would never happen. This afternoon I went in town,gone for an hour and a half. When I got back, the house was in flames, just as in my dream. I tried to save my dog, Zoë, but he blast of heat was so severe that it drove me back within seconds. I tried the other door, same result.  The only thing I accomplished was a backdraft and quicker fire.

 

The house is gone, my dog is gone, everything is gone. All my mother's things, everything I owned, gone. All gone. ll of it was just stuff. Except for Zoë, my beautiful Zoë. And now most of the pictures I had of her are gone, too, except for the few I had in the cloud.

As I sit here, 4+ hours after the fact, I'm only now shedding tears, as the numbness wears off. O nce the firetrucks left, it seemed I stopped holding my breath, and then it got real.

 

What is real?  Is anything real?  Do you see the same things I see? Do we see through the same eyes?  If I could just turn back the clock, if I could have gotten home maybe 45 minutes or even half an hour earlier, if I had let Zoë come with me. If, if, if...  None of it's real.  Only the moment, and even that isn't real.  Today is just a bad dream.  Tomorrow will be better.

 

When I got to my son's house, I saw the picture of Christ in the garden of Gethsemene, that I had hung there so long ago, and I thought, "I haven't suffered as He suffered.  I'll be okay."