The phone rang during my last voice lesson of the day, and I immediately knew from the tone of my wife’s voice that something was wrong. Ellie, the older of our two golden retrievers, had thrown up three times – and while I’m sure my wife didn’t get out a tape measure or kitchen scale to assess the volume of it, it was “a lot.” She just wanted me to know, very much the way one parent might call the other just to keep them informed when someone in the household is seriously under the weather. About an hour later she called again to say that Ellie had thrown up twice more and that she (that is to say, my wife) was changing her plans to drive to Madison this evening; there was no way she was leaving with her precious Ellie feeling so poorly. By the time I got home from church choir rehearsal about 9, Ellie had thrown up a total of eight times, leading Kathy to ask me if I’d fed Ellie some of the leftover Inside Out Ravioli we had last night for supper. It sure sounds like the kind of stupid thing I might do, but no- this has nothing to do with anything like that. As far as we can tell, it’s just a strange case of Dog Flu, which we hope will soon pass. And with Kathy still planning to be out of town for a couple of days, it falls to me to be the vigilant parent while she’s gone.
It’s moments like this that rather dramatically remind Kathy and me that we love Ellie and Bobbi almost as though they were our children. When something goes wrong with either of them, we feel a parental sort of anxiety and responsibility and we are unlikely to rest easily or sleep soundly until we know that they’re okay again. In fact, I find myself mightily tempted to sleep on the couch in the family room just to be close to Ellie in case something else should go wrong. I think the beauty and comfort of our wonderful bed upstairs will be all the argument I need to talk myself off/out of the couch, but part of me – and part of kathy- will be down here with the dogs. Someone without pets would probably reads those words and thinks to themselves “Get a Grip!” But those of you with pets know exactly what I’m talking about. . . and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that sort of heartfelt concern, even if that concern is for someone with four legs and a tail. It’s still a someone – and a someone who needs our love. Especially tonight.