Meeting Max

My mind wanders while I’m walking my dogs. We take the same familiar route every day which makes it easy for me to fall into a thought and stay there while still putting on the miles. Sometimes I get lost in what I’m currently writing, sometimes I get lost in a memory and sometimes that memory inspires something new to write about. Which is what happened this past week. I was walking and remembering and being inspired. I had a vision of a walk I’d taken a number of years ago.

It was on this same familiar walk that I crossed paths with an old man walking a very old dog. The encounter has stayed with me through the years. I think about that old man and that old dog frequently.  It was a short encounter but it hit my heart in a fashion that marked it.

I am drawn to old dogs, they are sweet and special and seem like the closest thing to God on a sunny day. I am compelled to touch them, to rest my hand on their shoulder for a moment, to acknowledge their holiness.

The old man looked sad, he was wearing his heart on his sleeve and I could see that it was breaking. “This is Max”, the old man said, his voice heavy with the sentiment reflected on his face. Clearly it was Max who was causing the old man’s heart to break.

Max stood quietly, his foggy eyes staring straight ahead. He was a little matted, a little smelly, but he was dear in the fashion of old dogs, and gentle. Obviously Max was loved. He didn’t flinch when I set my hand on his shoulder but neither did he wag his tail.

The old man seemed pleased to take a moment and relive stories from their past – back when Max was young and a force to be reckoned with. Apparently Max had saved that old man’s bacon on more than one occasion over their years together. The old man said he felt he owed these senior years to Max. Yes, Max was blind. And yes, it took him a while to get moving in the morning, his joints ached. But he still enjoyed his walks, he liked sniffing trees.

The old man’s words were catching in his throat. I got the feeling he knew Max wasn’t entirely enjoying these senior years, he knew Max had aches and pains and that he couldn’t see well enough to tell if the day was sunny or not. He knew he was going to have to save Max’s bacon one day soon.

I’m not sure why I think about that encounter so often or remember it so clearly – maybe it’s because I’ve had to be that old man once or twice in my life – it sort of comes with the turf. A dog lives its life without fear of death, it’s us, the people who love the dog who are afraid. I know in my heart that old man did right by Max eventually and that it was probably one of the hardest things he ever had to do. The decision to release pain by receiving it is what love for your dog looks like at the end of the day.

Max and that old man took a walk with me last week and I like to think for a moment that old dog was sniffing trees again, if only in my mind.