“Can you walk, sweetheart?” I say these words to our dog Stella who is dying. Its time for breakfast and if she walks from our bed to the kitchen, maybe that will be a sign. Maybe she will be alright. So I ask her again, Can you walk? As I ask, I remember eleven years of sleeping twisted like a pretzel so the dog could get a good nights sleep. I remember mornings, how she rose at dawn and stomped her Pointers feet on the mattress to get me up, to flush me out of the brush of sleep as she would a wild quail. Now its nine a.m. and she sighs at the foot of the bed, eyes alert and breathing rapidly.” In this poignant piece the writer reflects on the relationship between joy, love and suffering.
