living in the in-between

January/08/2014 - my dear Winnie Dixon / black pine & elm / aster seed heads / snow plow mountains / handsome Samuel / a crow / the salt mine in the distance / back yard buddies Sam & Winn / the snow plows getting the roads tiered & ready for the next dump of snow / love her ♡

This too shall pass

Hakim Sanai

The prayer of the faith full. My prayer. My mantra. My comfort. 
For nothing ever stays the same. 
& I know that to be true … I just forget that I know it.

Winnie turns 15 Friday. I adopted her 14 years ago. She's been having a hard time lately, her body's having a hard  time. Her spirit is still alive and full of love & devotion. Her appetite (especially for cat food ;-) is great ! she sleeps well, she has good days & sound nights, snoring loudly in her bed in our bedroom but her poor arthritic back legs and hind end are not co-operating. This #?*%!! winter is not co-operating. This winter sucks. It's bitter cold and extremely icy interspersed with drifting heaps of snow. Not good for arthritic lil' old legs & trepidation with every step.  We have a trip tomorrow planned to our vet Dianne Stevens in Sackville, NB. Dianne has been our vet (les gang's vet) for nearly 20 years, practically the entire time I've lived in this little village. I'm hoping things will go well. I'm hoping for some good news, some reassurance & some comfort. I trust Dianne. 

I'm living in the in-between times. In between loving and caring for a younger healthy dog and bracing myself for the preparation and pain of letting her go. Letting her go. Letting her leave. Letting Miss D say goodbye when the time is right for her, not when the time is right for me because of course the time will never be right for me. It may be soon … or maybe we have lots more time. I'm trying to become more comfortable living in the lands of in-between. Trying to snuggle into my new favourite cozy sweater - faith. Being full of faith that the Universe has things covered, that I can let down my vigilance & control and relax into these in-between times.

He knew how to handle pain. You had to lie down with pain, not draw back away from it. You let yourself sort of move around the outside edge of pain like with cold water until you finally got up your nerve to take yourself in hand. Then you took a deep breath and dove in and let yourself sink down it clear to the bottom. And after you had been down inside pain a while you found that like with cold water it was not nearly as cold as you had thought it was when your muscles were cringing themselves away from the outside edge of it as you moved around it trying to get up your nerve. He knew pain.

James Jones from Here to Eternity