Falling

I was falling from a plane and holding Wendy tight in my arms before the hotel phone rang too early this morning.

"Let go of Wendy and save yourself," I heard my moms shout.  "I will never do that," I shouted back as Wendy wriggled from fright in my arms.

As we fell down to earth I was thinking that it does not take a long time to descend.  I could see a lot of green and brown coming up very fast.

I wondered if somewhere in the fall there was a point where I could get back onto the plane and avoid the inevitable.

Wendy felt familiar in my arms.  On trips back to Number 11 we would play on the kept grass and I'd pick her always tense body up and set her down gently time and time again.

Though just a dog to passersby, Wendy was part of the spirit to me.

As we neared the ground I tightened my grip and our bodies slowed to a float.  I could see my legs just moments before we landed safely on the grass of Number 11.

I set Wendy down gently and she looked up at me knowingly.

"We gonna be OK Wendy," I said.

"Edmund Edmund is that you.  Good morning."

"No you have the wrong number," I replied trying hard to hold onto my dream at half past the uncivilized hour of 5.

Wendy passed just five months after my dad in 2009.

I laid her down gently into the soft soil of number 11 facing Mecca because moms wanted it so.

A few hours later I was sitting on my bed working through waves of sadness when our 8 year old Chihuahua walked over to me and stood up on her hind legs and laid her head on the side of my leg.

The aloof alpha female, Cindy, had come to console me.  Even now I can still feel her head on my leg.

I have struggled with mortality and life and meaning in the last year and a half.  Losing my father is still very much unfinished business and many frames of falling and not being in control haunt me. 

Just minutes ago I opened an email that read "Cindy passed away peacefully last night.  I am sorry because I know how much you loved her."

Cindy on the left and Wendy on the right at Number 11

I expected that she would pass soon.

I last saw her in September and she had grown frail and thin.  Her eyes were not so bright anymore and she seemed to be saying "goodbye".

I guess if you live long enough you get to know death very well.

Though the  falling is inevitable it is never ever easy to comprehend or to accept.

Until that reckoning ...

Onward!