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Show v ^JN^ Lucy-6 me as if to say, OK, Mom, I'll stop, and dutifully fell in behind our horses. On hikes, she loved to scramble up steep rocks or dolphin in exuberant arcs through thick grasses. She sometimes startled other hikers who thought at first she was a wild animal. In truth, she was so gentle that even people who feared dogs came to relax in her presence. Because of this, I once tried taking her to a nursing home as a therapy dog, but she picked up on my sadness from earlier nursing-home visits that I thought I'd forgotten, and she could not stop crying. She was so attuned to my emotions, it was impossible to be sad for long! At the dog park in Illinois, she became the champion tennis ball dog, always keeping her eyes fixed on the ball even when all the other dogs had dashed off after a fake-out throw, but she would yield gracefully to the aggressive chashers. K, Lucy saw me through the later years when trips to Best Friends were no longer x ^ j V? possible, which were also years of loss: my younger brother's failing struggle against leukemia, the passing of parents and step-parents, an inheritance largely consumed by the f\ X great fire in the Oakland Hills, my near -triumph as a recognized author, but just missing N ("by a hair" as one national contest judge wrote) and subsequent denial of tenure, sale of 8- ^ my beloved horse, Eric-but knowing that his new person, a wise little girl, would love \^ J^A ~T> him for the rest of his life. Then came that absurdly arduous job search mandated by if? academia, a move to Kentucky to a heavy teaching load, lung surgery scare, recurrent bronchitis in the heavy humidity, a shattered femur from a freak accident as volunteer horse exerciser at a therapeutic riding center. (We weren't even galloping!) Most of all, / Lucy saw me through the isolation shared by all too many singles of a certain age who've \jr lost family, moved too many times, and found themselves on the wrong end of that American post 9/11 phenomenon-withdrawal into exclusive family units. |
