Cooper wasn’t the dog I wanted, but the dog I needed. If he was sent to our family by some power greater than I, it was surely to teach one important lesson:
Not everything makes sense.
One day long ago, my wife saw a “found dog” poster. The person who found this young Sheltie mix was seeking his owner. My wife called the number and said that if he went unclaimed, she’d want him.
We already had a fairly new pooch, a Corgi mix named Buddy. Though he was young, he was nevertheless a good little citizen, eager to please, congenial, social, and overall pretty low maintenance.
The lost dog came home with us after going a week unclaimed. Cooper and Buddy were instant friends.
Coop, however, seemed to be everything Buddy was not: Independent, energetic, playfully antagonistic, and generally a little clown.
He could also be wholly illogical. Sometimes on a walk I’d catch him trying to eat nails, trash, twine and more. However, his bougie dog food was, at times, beneath him. He could go berserk when seeing another dog, yet be the first to comply when I called him in from the yard. One time a dose of a run-of-the-mill NSAID kept him awake for almost 3 days.
Among the lessons I’ve learned in PLACE is this:
Not everything makes sense.
Estrangement results in ambiguous grief. We don’t know if this is permanent, which makes it markedly different from grieving the death of a loved one.
And part of that ambiguity is often not knowing why. Granted, some parents have been given explanations, even if they feel estrangement is an unwarranted response. Other parents have been given vague or inaccurate explanations, and for some parents, nothing. Not a word. It doesn’t make sense, and that is unsettling.
Cooper, named by my now-estranged daughter, could be considered a living metaphor, possessing opposite qualities of bafflingly illogical behavior and such faithfulness that his nickname is “Velcro.”
And he’s been ill. He has a cancerous growth that the vet has informed us is untreatable. Lately he’s been lethargic, eating very little, and lacking his jester spirit. We took him to the vet yesterday, fearing that we’d have to make a difficult decision.
A spark of hope emerged, as the vet explained that he has three (3) other conditions right now that are curable. His apparent sickness may, as of now, be a result of those, instead of the condition that we know will become terminal.
So as I write this, he’s on day two of medications, and we’re watching to see if he bounces back. As is the case with estrangement, while there is hope, we are careful with it. And at least that makes sense.
