Our little dog Lizzie is old and sick this summer. Something like an inner-ear affliction has made her dizzy most of the time, and she stumbles around the house looking for something familiar. And my heart breaks a little bit, to see this tiny dog we've all loved and chased for 14 years, to see her unsure of herself and confused and sapped of energy. There are all kinds of losses out there, other losses in my own heart and circles these days. But Lizzy's brittle, but still so beautiful movement brands me with tenderness and gratitude. For the ones we love. For the ones who bring the love out of us.
It hits me tonight, though, watching Lizzie wobble and lurch, that she is so perfect now, so beautiful and graceful in all of this. Just doing what she's doing. Just peeling back the layers of her life and showing us her frailty and innocence. A wise soul said something to me last week, about the diminishing that happens as we get older, and maybe the diminishing that is the real mystery of love, of age, of faith. To diminish in love around the ones we love. To diminish in courage within the circles of love that are dear to us. Even to diminish into Christ, to disappear into Christ, somehow.
Just writing these words, I'm drawn into a kind of glad sadness, a deep sadness; and I'm painfully aware of how little I really know of life, of God, of the essences of all this. Lizzie seems to get it much more completely than I--and I'm so glad she's sharing, bearing witness before me. With me this week.
