Dog Years

Most of you knew our dog Lady and that she died suddenly in the first part of December.  It was very much an unexpected sorrow.

She passed of natural causes but yet she was only seven and a half years old.  That has set Christy and I to thinking about her life, it's term and even it's meaning.

Dog Years, like most things to do with the perception of time, is a very suspicious measurement.  Turns out it's a ratio which puts average dog life span on one side of the equation and compares it against average human life span.  Just about any dog owner will tell you that life expectancy is dependent on breed and size...and while I'm probably talking with equal legitimacy about both dogs and humans, I'm certainly right with regard to dogs. 

Our dog was 7.5 in calendar years making her about 43 in human years.  Generally, I think we'd all acknowledge this as being "too young to die."  However, I'll defer to Kurt Vonnegut on this point. Vonnegut once commented on the old saw, "War is the great human tragedy," with the observation, "No it's not.  Death is the great human tragedy."  If it had been a few decades later, there likely would have been a "Duh!" at the end of his sentence.

Time is a funny business.  Most of us most of the time, encounter and engage time as an artifact of our consciousness and nervous systems.  Seconds and minutes on through years and millennia and even beyond, all are divided into units which are convenient to us.  However, these units have zero meaning outside our use of them. 

For example, a star of known mass and composition can never be said to burn out (I'm lumping in a bunch of possible state changes with the term "burn out") after so many seconds/years/millennia/eons/whatevers.  The star burns out according to the laws of physics.  Interestingly, while this "burn out" can be predicted approximately using human time scale, the same laws of physics state emphatically that it can never be predicted precisely, even if the state of every atom in the star is understood completely for the duration of the stars life.  (Finally, I can have an excuse for being late just by calling myself a "star."  Yes, I did just commit pun and I apologize.)

In the universe, and independent of human time keeping, the only thing time really represents is a combination of precedence (the order in which things happen), cause and effect, and resultant state change.

In our dog's life, there were a number of state changes.  In part at least, she went from puppy to adolescent to mature adult.  During that time, she got rid of some habits, learned some new tricks and thankfully, mellowed.  Despite being a Queensland (a breed known for being able to win virtually all contests of will, even with geologic formations) she was very anxious to please and in her early days a bit timid. 

I first started taking her on walks in the mountains about 3 years ago.  In those early days, she stayed very close.  When we met people on foot or on horse back, she would close the already short distance between us to the point that she would be touching my legs. 

As time passed (both dog and human), she gained confidence on our walks.  In the last year or so, she learned to flush quail, chase lizards and even chase the occasional deer...who were always gracious enough to run away as if they had reason to be afraid.  Other than extreme survival issues ala "Call of the Wild," there's hardly an area of dogdom she didn't eventually conquer, at least at a rudimentary level.  In the span of her short life, many good things happened.

Our grief at her passing comes from our missing her and from our not having her present with us.  We imagine that the time wasn't "long" enough.  But somehow we're discovering that at some level it probably at least can be said to have had great content with much love, happiness and even joy (on our parts at least).

To preach for a moment, I think we make a mistake when we worry over much about life's duration and underplay quality, and when we confuse quality with material well being.  Life is intrinsically valuable and very beautiful.  Duration, intensity, etc. are but properties of a much greater and still more beautiful reality.

I doubt God owns a watch.  Just like the sun described above, all things happen when they do, no sooner and not a moment after.  Things that happen might trespass our wishes and values and even cause us harm or pain. However, "time marches on," and "this too shall pass."  And so to will things of joy and even those near us that we love.  Things continue to happen.

I have to end off here pretty soon so I can get ready for church, or I'll be late...that is, not on time.  It's clearly no wonder we get distracted by the calendar, the second hand and countless conventions we've enslaved to the subjectively structured slots of consciousness we refer to as time.  I think though, we're called to be looking past all that and to put primary value on the fact of things happening rather than when they happen or how long they last.  (For example, the positive effect and contribution we can add to the lives of others.)  I think worrying about the when of it all, as I am prone to do, is misplaced.