Yesterday I was going through the videos on my phone and deleting the ones I didn’t want to keep. I happened upon one that was very bittersweet to watch: it was a video of my 17-year-old chihuahua pup, Victor, taken at the park in Bandera, Texas, in January of this year. We’d just finished taking both pups on a long walk, something we did most days—and Victor was full of vigor, running first to this side, then the other, anxious for Daddy to put him in the car where a dish of ice cold water awaited him.
Today, less than a year later, Victor is a much different pup. Having nearly all the symptoms—disorientation, sleeps most of the day, soiling inside the RV—he’s recently been diagnosed with doggie dementia. Thankfully, he still has a healthy appetite🙏🏽 so I don’t think he’s at the end of the line just yet.🙏🏽
Victor’s slowing down has made me slow down, too, and that’s not a bad thing.🙏🏽 I spend more time than I used to ’just sitting’ with him and being with him.🙏🏽 He’s usually sleeping as I’m stroking his head and petting him, and maybe doesn’t even know I’m there, but it doesn’t matter. This is quality time🙏🏽, and I treasure it because I know it’s not going to last much longer.
The practice of gratitude in difficult situations like this has helped make accepting them a bit easier.🙏🏽 I’m grateful for all the joy Victor’s given me all these years and all the times he made me laugh.🙏🏽 I’m grateful I can feel the emotion of sadness instead of trying to numb it.🙏🏽 I’m grateful to be able to walk my pup Home.🙏🏽
I also said to myself, “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. ~Ecclesiastes 3:18
