Wow - been a long time since last time...

I just got back home from Scottish Rite where Kyla and Katrice are curled up in a single hospital bed getting some sleep before the surgery tomorrow. I should be in bed myself, actually. Something has been nagging me lately, though. Something that happened about a week or two ago. But before I go there, let me back up a little further, first...

We lost Nutmeg (our dog and family member of 11 years) about a month ago or so now, and I still regularly feel her not where she's supposed to be, if you know what I mean. Before that sad day, though, whenever Katrice was home and Nutmeg wasn't out on patrol in the yard, she was Katrice's all but constant shadow. Where Katrice was, you could pretty much bet Nutmeg was not far away (oddly, though, Nutmeg was usually more obedient when it was me telling her what to do than when it was Katrice). In spite of that, there were the not all together uncommon occasions when I'd be up at some ridiculous hour of the night, sitting here on the couch tapping away on my computer, that Nutmeg would leave her post at the foot of the bed where Katrice was sleeping, and come softly clicking in on the hardwood floors to check on me. Maybe have a puppy dream or two at my feet before heading back to the bedroom and Katrice again. In all of that, it was unmistakable that - as Katrice said it best - we were her pack, and at the end of the day, in her little doggie mind, her place was with us. She didn't necessarily have to be playing or being scratched or even awake. Sometimes she would just sit with her eyes half open, her ears swiveling every now and again. Just enough to feel like she was on top of the events in her immediate vicinity, I'm sure.

Well, a week or two ago, I came home late - well after Kyla's bedtime. Katrice had gone in to put her to bed, and had herself fallen asleep in the process. Both were in Kyla's room, and the house was still and quiet. Usually, in a situation like that I would go downstairs and try to get in an hour on this project or that one, or maybe just spend a little brainless time on Facebook or some other internet distraction I'd found. This particular night, though, I turned and headed down the hall to Kyla's room. I couldn't tell you why in any specific terms - just felt the need to check in on them. I quietly slipped into the room and stood there by Kyla's platform bed for a half-a-minute or so. Then did something I'd not ever done before.

I laid down on the floor. Right next to the bed where Kyla and Katrice were snoozing away.

Again, I couldn't tell you what compelled me to do so. I mean, Katrice and I did a pretty good job on Kyla's room, if I may say so. Before Kyla was even born I made her three large butterflies that are on the wall above her bed - one green, one pink, and one yellow. I also built her an "end table" of sorts that looks somewhat like something out of Alice in Wonderland. The top is three flowers and the base is painted to look like a twisting stem and leaves. Hanging over the closet doors is a string of colorful, LED-lit butterflies, and Katrice found a large area rug that is basically a very soft, green shag. In this setting it is unmistakably reminiscent of a large plot of grass, and the foam pad beneath it is extra thick, as foam pads go. The room - particularly at night - is one of the most peaceful places I've ever encountered. But that wasn't what stopped me that night.

As I laid there in the dark wondering, honestly, why I was laying there, the answer suddenly came to me in the image of a mid-sized, honey-yellow dog with a big, black nose and humorously over-sized, pointy ears, resting her head on her paws and quietly watching me with soft, brown, knowing eyes. I opened my own eyes and focused on the conspicuously empty area of the rug. She wasn't there, but the message she delivered at that moment was unmistakable:

This was my pack. This was where I belonged, and sometimes, in certain very special places, you don't have to earn your worth. It is because it is. It's where you belong.

I suddenly came to a deeper understanding of Nutmeg at that moment, and through her, of myself as well. I suddenly understood how just sitting in the room with us, apparently doing "nothing," was actually all that she needed at that moment, and it was enough. I came to a new understanding of belonging. Nutmeg didn't have the constant onslaught of external struggles and internal recriminations to erode her belief in her status of "belonging." Nor did she carry any emotional baggage that constantly undermined her perception of the level of her worth to others. She was simply there because that's where she belonged, and she let it lie at that. Simple faith, no questions.

Still, as usual, even when the "aha" moments come along, they rarely have the ability to completely erase the perceptions and beliefs that had been obscuring that new-found truth up until that point. My struggles go on...

But - for that quiet moment in the middle of the night, Nutmeg "came back" to give me a new perspective on "belonging simply because I belong," and to remind me that it's not because I've figured out a way to - for now - be worth something. And she reminded me that I do, in fact, belong.

Thanks for that, Nut. I miss you...