It wasn’t easy nailing down a date with the
veterinarian. In addition to the
seasonal volume, she had time off planned and we had vacation plans bearing
down on us as well. There were two dates
when I absolutely couldn’t do it…and one of those dates was the first one she
offered. She had an open spot on
Wednesday afternoon, which happened to be the exact time that I would be
getting a physical…the first time I would be seeing a doctor in over five
years. I have been astounding healthy,
missing, on average, less than one day a year at work, suffering from no more
than bad colds. Yet, I’m soon to be 52,
and I’m wondering if the changes I’m feeling in my body are natural signs of
aging or something worse. The something
worse is what worries you. Aging is beautiful in a lot of ways, largely in that
it implies longevity.
The other date I couldn’t accommodate was today, my wife’s
birthday. With a plan set to attend a
Detroit Tiger baseball game, we would not pass up the opportunity, nor would we saddle
ourselves with the memory of a negative thing on her special day. Kath has grown to love the Tigers as much as
I do. We spend many evenings on our back
porch, listening to the radio broadcast, making fun of Jim Price, loathing Brad
Ausmus, and pulling like hell for ‘our’ personal Tigers, Miguel Cabrera for me
and J.D. Martinez for her.
We went to the baseball game, which was over quickly. Four runs scored in the first inning by the
Red Sox made it almost a lost cause from the beginning, with the Tigers in an
offensive slump. The rest of the evening
was a race to the bottom of our beer cups and peanut bags. The highlights were an usher that accepted a
five-dollar bribe for a better seat in the late innings and a J.D. Martinez
home run. Fireworks after the game were
anti-climactic, our moods darkened by the loss of the contest and of course,
our impending loss of Flash.
We don’t receive the welcome we used to get when we return
home. It used to be a springy hound that
would leap nearly to my shoulder, eager to share his indecipherable account of
the evening and a desire to eat, play and go outside, all at once. Now, with his hearing so diminished, he
doesn’t even hear the car keys clattering across the counter, the slamming and
locking of doors. We tiptoe into the
living room and wake him gently, slowly, so he doesn’t try to leap to his
feet. Arthritis has claimed his joints
so thoroughly that, when he attempts to get up as he did when he was younger,
he falls down. The old bones don’t want
to hold him up. It’s hard to believe
that this is the same animal that caught three rabbits just a few years
ago. Up until this year, the squirrels
were still afraid of him. This year,
Squirrel Nutkin chatters in the tree at the dog they know will stay on the
porch because he doesn’t want to walk down two steps to the grass.
We give him some time outside and some treats and strokes
inside, and then outside again and then more treats and love. Flash finally decides that his day is
complete and toddles off to the master bedroom.
Kath and I, half asleep on the couch, follow as if on cue. It hasn’t been the happiest of birthdays for
her but, with our daughter grown, our son recently out of the house and the dog
failing, she must be realizing she’s stuck with just me. She’s probably hoping that old dogs CAN learn
new tricks.
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