“No News”
Tanner wasn’t waiting for me at the fence yesterday.
Dakota and Tanner, my two oldest dogs, are always waiting for me at the chain-link fence. Dakota can’t hear and doesn’t see well, so she stays close to the fence in the afternoon when I walk by in order to collect her treat. Tanner really can’t see or hear at all, so he keeps close to Dakota. Yesterday he wasn’t there.
The thing about giving out dog treats is that, even though I have a relationship with all these dogs, I don’t know much about them.
“Where is your brother?” I once asked a long-legged hound that I always met with her sibling.
“We had to put him down yesterday,” the hound dog’s owner said, as his eyes filled with tears.
“Oh! I’m sorry. That was sudden,” I said.
He nodded and wiped his eyes. The now-single hound looked up at me with big sad eyes, as if she knew what we were talking about. It was sudden for everyone.
Today I am worried about Tanner. He’s 14, and it pulls at my heart the way he takes his treat so gently. He cannot see my hand. His teeth are old and worn. His muzzle is gray. He is so old and kind and careful. And yesterday, he was missing.
My heart was already tender.
My husband Peter’s oldest sister, Shelley, has been in and out of the hospital for more than two months. She has made it out as far as rehab, and then had to go back to the hospital for more surgeries, more infections, more trouble.
Peter is still grieving the loss of his other sister, Lori, who died of cancer just this spring. He is worried—we are both so worried— about Shelley.
I try not to ask Peter, “Any news on Shelley?” because he would tell me if there was. And so I go for my walk and always in the back of my mind I’m wondering about Shelley. And then, yesterday, Tanner was missing.
“Where is Tanner?” I asked Dakota, as she ate her treat. She did not answer. I could tell she thought she should get a second treat, since I had another one in my hand, ready.
“This treat is for Tanner!” I told her. But she kept staring at me, giving me no clue where he might be.
I used to think bad news was the hardest thing to bear. Now I’m not sure if no ...
