Lesson 5: Grow old gracefully

I've been going through all the old photos that I've taken of our dogs over the last 27 years, and I'm amazed at the lives and stories that each animal went through.  In looking at a certain image, I'm taken back immediately to that moment, and Joe and I sit here laughing and crying at all the wondrous, silly or sad moments.

In looking at these two images, the one on the left was the night we brought Buddy into our home, and the right image was taken just last week, several days after Bud's surgery.  I can still feel his soft puppy fur under my fingers.  I remember taking him outside at 4:30 in the morning teaching him where and when to do his business.  He was one of our quickest learners -- thank God!

It's so hard to look at these two photos side by side realizing 11+ years have gone by between the two.  Buddy has gone through so much in that period,  But I also look at these pictures and I come to realize what Bud's been teaching me about getting older.

With our previous goldens, I was in my 30's and 40's, right in the middle of life.  I'm 57 now, and my life experiences are changing also.  Already I wake up with different aches and pains.  My left shoulder and elbow continually ache with signs of arthritis.  My vision is so different from what it was, and I now have a pair of blended bifocals.  At least they're not as obvious as the bifocals my dad used to wear.  My beard has gone gray, and I have no idea what color my hair is as I keep it pretty close to the scalp.  Vanity.

Buddy started going gray when he was about five, and now his muzzle is almost completely white.  He no longer plays and long or as hard as he used to.  We take the kids to the park often and let them run and roam around.  Buddy's sole interest has always been to play catch with one of the balls we always keep in the trunk for him.  In his younger days he'd run the whole time we'd be at the park.  Nowadays he will play for a short time; and then after some wondering around smelling all the great smells in the park, he'll lay down next to me and just let the world pass by.  I know he has some hip problems with hip displasia, but he's just as eager as always to go bye-bye and check the world out.

My aches and pains will stay with me as I too grow older.  But if I look at the world through Buddy's eyes, I realize that there's so much more to my life than this process of aging.  I may not play as hard or as long as I used to, but my lesson is to enjoy each day as much as possible, to look forward -- like   Bud -- to go bye-bye and check out what the world has in store for me.