Sitting on the cold floor in a patch of warm sunlight, with Gigi circling me.
I text my boss, “I’m working from home to watch her.”
She’s been on the mend from a pancreatitis flare up, and I think we’re finally in the clear.
I kept her (and her seriously stinky butt) out of the crate and in bed with me last night. Instead of hearing her faint cries that sound like mews, I opted to feel her uneasy body shift beside me, and we’d stumble down the stairs together.
Once at 11:44 pm. Another at 2:13. Then 3:30. 4:51.
I’d wait while she relieved herself with the most horrendous noises, the wind from a cold front stirring the palm trees, the Leo moon hanging heavy in the sky.
I know I’ll have to experience life without Gigi someday, but I refuse to dwell on that beyond saying it out loud once in a while. I’ll protect and keep her healthy at all costs, and by 6 a.m., she’s buried in my lap on the couch, and I hold her back foot in one hand, pressing the pads of her paw the way I always do.
She’s so used to it that whenever she’s with her groomer, Jessica, she gives her back to me and says, “She really will let me do whatever I want! She’s the sweetest.”
I think that’s only surprising because she’s a terrier.
I haven’t had much of a voice for writing lately. It feels like it left me. I look at the things I’ve posted recently with a sort of disgust. I’m too hung up on to-do lists, upcoming events, minor inconveniences, and the horrors of the news.
I try to lean into small comforts instead: cooking rice, watching Gigi’s bright, alert face and soft eyes, looking healthier already as she waits for her tiny portion.
I’ll pamper us both for the rest of the day, until we can be active together again.
How lucky we are.
(Daily Writing 105)
Thoughts?