A Moral to My Three Stories.

So I have been sick.

It totally wiped me out.

I still have a cough but feeling much better

I did miss a couple of days work and slept in until 7

I have a really hard time staying in bed, even when I feel horrible.

So I'd get up and stumble downstairs and let the dogs out and back in and then

collapsed in my big chair where I just dozed in and out all day.

I had no energy to do anything and I couldn't really get my thoughts together enough to form a sentence.

Finally the haze has lifted and I find myself really reflecting back on a couple of things that happened prior to my illness.

Halloween morning I was running a few minutes late on my way to work.

I hadn't planned on wearing a costume but the day before my co-workers had talked me into it. 

So because it was last minute I dressed as what most girls do when in a pinch.

I went as a black cat.

I wore ears and a tail and painted my eyes like a cat and drew whiskers on my face.

Doing this different make-up threw me off my normal routine of getting ready so I was hurrying to get out the door.

I jumped in my car and drove down my street, there wasn't hardly any traffic

but of course the light was red at the intersection.

I pulled up to the stoplight and waited for it to change.

There was a car to my left in the turn lane that was pulled up a few feet further than I was

and there was a car to my right also waiting on the signal.

At this particular stop there's a sign that reads "Obey your own signal" so no one turns on red there.

It was still very early, the sun was not completely up but it wasn't dark any longer either.

Just kinda of grey.

I sat at the light and reached over for my purse and double checked that I had my phone.

I did, so I set it back in the passenger seat .

Then the light turned green.

I stepped on the gas and out of the corner of my eye I saw something kinda flitter up to the left.

The car to the left had not turned although it was ahead of me and because of that flitter I stomped on my brake.

Suddenly there was a young girl, probably only about 12 or so, frozen in front of my car.

She must have realized my car was going forward and then for some reason just suddenly stopped in front of me. 

Her face was painted like a cat and the hood on her coat was down and I saw her black pointy ears.

She actually looked like I might have at her age. Her hair messy and her cheeks red from running.

She looked frightened and had that deer in the headlight look.

She stopped for that split second and then ran across the rest of the intersection.

There's a Middle School a few blocks further down, maybe she was late

although I thought it was too early for school to be starting.

I just Thank God that none of us in our cars had been in a huge hurry.

I drove to work so AWARE.

It was like someone had thrown ice water in my face.

In the matter of seconds and I could have killed her.

Her life could have been GONE.

Her family destroyed.

I don't know how I would have ever survived something like that.

Mere seconds and everything could have been so different. 

I couldn't help thinking there was something even bigger about all this that I needed to figure out.

That is was some sort of a sign, a lesson or maybe a moral. Something more than just  a reminder to drive very safely.

Then I started thinking about something else that I never shared here.

A couple of months ago I went in one of our exam rooms at work to say goodbye one of my boarders.

I had boarded this couple's two dogs, an old greyhound and a very old Whippet, for many many years.

Then the couple had adopted a younger whippet a year or two ago to kinda buffer the pain of the losses that they knew would soon come.

But last spring, their younger dog, the newest one, was diagnosed with some things that I won't go into here but eventually she was wasting away and they had to let her go.

They told me through tears that she was supposed to be their safety net. Their dog to help them through their grief

but instead they lost her first.

Now the greyhound who had been on almost a dozen different medications suddenly just couldn't go on.

He couldn't walk and he wouldn't eat and they had to let him go too.

They brought their ancient whippet along with so that he could realize what was going on.

They wanted him to realize that his friend had died so that he wouldn't be looking for him and wondering where he was.

We all sat on the floor and cried.

I said goodbye to the old greyhound and turned to pet the little whippet.

He had survived them all.

He looked at me hard. His gaze was intent and

I swear he was telling me with his eyes, "I'm still here!"

I suddenly thought of my grandfather.

He passed a few years back but I remember some 25 years ago rushing to the hospital when he had a heart attack.

Everyone was gathered around his hospital bed, so worried about him.

My grandmother didn't even know how to drive and was terrified of the possibility of a life without him.

My Dad talked about how my Grandfather needed to eat healthier from now on and

my Aunt was so shaken and shocked by the fact that she almost lost her Dad

and then...

One after the other, those three people have passed on and my grandfather lived many many more years.

He was retired but then got a part-time job, he dated several ladies and he even adopted himself a cat.

Yes, he's gone now too but who would have thought he'd be the last of them to go.

I'm boarding that little ancient whippet dog right now.

The couple has gone out and rescued two more whippets, both 9 years old.

So I actually boarding all three.

They all have fleecy winter coats that they wear outside in this bad weather

and today as I velcroed the old dog's belt around him, I looked at him at had that thought again.

He's 16...and I swear he has more spring in his step than ever. 

So what do these three tales have in common you might say?

Well. maybe it's just that you can't really plan anything.

That things will happen and not happen,

Life goes on.

Just because we are a certain age that may sometimes seem old to us,

it doesn't mean we might not have more years left than someone much younger.

Maybe the moral is that no matter what, what's going to happen it's going to happen.

Or not happen.

Maybe it's about fate, some cosmic plan or maybe it's God

Maybe it's just to say enjoy TODAY.

The other morning I was running a few minutes behind again and as I got to the bridge, the drawspan was open.

I had to turn around and drive to the other bridge, but I didn't hurry.

I just drove to work and didn't feel stressed

When I got to work, I was only a few minutes past the time I'm usually there, still earlier than almost everyone else.

I later told a co-worker that I think there was a reason for me being late by just a few minutes.

That maybe I missed something that I was suppose to miss.