Where Am I?

A friend of mine sent me an email recently to inform me that he was reading a book that I just had to read—immediately! It was written by Dave Barry about his ten year old dog and carried the title: Lessons From Lucy: The Simple Joys of an Old, Happy Dog. Barry was a guy I used to read all the time back in the day, and since his dog’s name was “Lucy”, it seemed a perfect book for me. My Lucy is also ten years old. I downloaded it that same afternoon.

Mr. Barry was something of a hero to me years ago, he of the sharp wit and Beatles haircut. His sarcastic and hilarious observations about, well everything, suited my tastes back then. Eventually I tired of him. As a writer he was very much a one trick pony and since I stopped taking the Times-Dispatch two decades ago, we lost touch. It’s been wonderful to get reacquainted.

I bring this up not to talk about the book, which by the way was wonderful, but because after I finished reading it I found myself in quite the sentimental mood. The fact is that Lucy is getting old. In dog years she is 70. Her face has taken on that white glow. She is on the back nine of her life. She has probably two or three more years with us, then we will have to say goodbye. Its how it works with dogs. They are not life-long companions. They blaze into our lives like a meteorite, light us up in a thousand ways and then go back where they came from…most likely, heaven.

Which brings me to a Christmas present I received this year that I haven’t been able to stop staring at…

Perfect. Its just perfect. Lucy, standing at the end of a dock, gazing in wonder at the lake and the hills across the way, waiting for someone to come sit down next to her. Waiting for me. But where am I? What is keeping me? What could I possibly be doing that’s more important than sitting in that chair having a conversation with Lucy? For me, this photograph is two things. An invitation and a rebuke. And thanks to Mr. Dave Barry a reminder that time is short.