“Found a dog . . . on Craigslist,” Dreamer said. “But the ad’s a month old.”
A month ago, I couldn’t imagine initiating a rescue.
But things changed with Dreamer’s diagnosis.
Might a loyal, eloquent-if-non-speaking, waggery companion shadowing our steps help us face the future?
We emailed the owners, somehow won their hearts, then drove to Rosalia, Idaho, for the hand-off.
Within the first minute, “Vinnie” licked Dreamer’s face. Think power wash.
Then, tail thumping, he leapt into our car, and he snuggled my beloved all the way home.
Vinnie is a tawny, 4-year-old Husky/Rottweiler. He’s sweet-tempered, patient, and well-trained. After a worrisome three-day hunger strike—despite our elderly charm campaign and wheedling dog-dish charades (plus a dear friend’s prayers)—hunger won out.
The Vinster consented to eat.
Consent denotes willingness to embrace change: You seem nice; sure, I’ll sleep by your bed—while also maintaining a measure of control—Kibbles? I can snarf ‘em or leave ‘em. Watch me.
Consent, even canine, can be withheld. Given. Withdrawn.
Assent, on the other hand, cedes power differently. Factual circumstances may not change—in our case, despite fervent pleading with God.
Like Vinnie, re-homed, Dreamer and I can’t change where we find ourselves now. But God’s grace can change us in profound, unforeseen ways.
Moment by lurching moment, we are learning to say yes to this new chapter unfolding before us.
“Be it unto me according to your word,” Mary told the angel Gabriel. Her willing, wholehearted assent embraced a life radically reshaped, from that moment, forward.
Author Sarah Clarkson writes, “You don’t have to assent or agree with what is before you, and often you ought not to; but if you do, [your assent] is something offered, a yielding to a story you perhaps didn’t choose and don’t yet fully understand.”
Which sounds really spiritual.
Yet often, we’re sad and scared. Or mercifully distracted. There are also moments we struggle to breathe through the sneaker wave of desolation.
Some nights, I distract myself with a crossword puzzle. Other nights, it’s enough to simply listen to Dreamer breathing beside me. Still here.
As well as the random snurffle from Vinnie, snoozing beside our bed.
Our days fill with prayers and research and learning the ways of our new companion. We are a threesome now. With a dog who just barfed, twice. Once on the carpet.
Didn’t see that coming.
Post-cleanup, barricaded in the kitchen, Vinnie somehow Houdini-es through one corner of the canvas folding screen. Turns out Velcro tabs do not deter 70 pounds of lonesome, panting, disoriented mind, muscle, and heart.
He misses his old life. As we miss ours.
Dementia can be erratic, unbearably cruel. Our Healer-Redeemer never sleeps, is ever-present, unchanging, compassionate. It is to God’s unending love we say yes, not to the disease—trusting that what tears us open is already, by grace, deeply at work within us, and will continue, ultimately forging a healing path forward.
“. . . Jesus is going ahead of you,” the angel at the tomb tells the women gathered there in sorrow, fear, and confusion.
Talk about a lifeline.
Perhaps you’re enduring events likely to unravel your heart or ravage the life of someone you love. Friends, let’s pray for each other, seeking the grace to surrender to God all we are and have and will one day be.
P.S.
Here’s a “5 – 5 – 8” breathwork stress-buster we find calming, a small, real-time rescue when panic looms:
- five-count inhale
- hold breath for five counts
- exhale audibly for eight counts
I’ve added words and motion, which help dispel late-night anxiety spikes):
- (inhale for 5) As if playing a keyboard, palms down, moving left pinky first, sequentially tap each finger, praying: “We trust you, Jesus.” (Or: “We love you, Jesus.”)
- (hold breath for 5) Right thumb to pinky, sequentially tap each finger, praying: “Have mercy on us.”
- (exhale for 8) Left pinky to right middle finger, one tap each: “All that we have and are is yours.”
Repeat, as needed.
You might also enjoy “Catch Your Breath Here” (from the archives.)
I highly recommend Sarah Clarkson’s book, Reclaiming Quiet.
Photo of Sleeper by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Dear dear Laurie, I have come late to this conversation and goodness, I am a little weary and teary to read of your precious husband’s dementia.
Such a hard road. I suppose a comically challenging rescue dog is a welcome distraction.
Sarah’s books have always been astounding: This Beautiful Truth was a remarkable read.
My first introduction to Sarah’s writing thanks to my friend Kimberlee’s recommendtion–was Bookgirl. I have added many titles to my list because of that book. And Sarah’s writing on Substack at The Vicarage is breathtaking; I don’t I know anyone else quite like her. I’m so grateful for her voice.
And yours.
You will both be in my prayers.
Thank you so much for your caring response. And yes, the dog makes us laugh.
I’ve ordered the book you mention from our library and look forward to reading it. I enjoyed Bookgirl., and, like you, extended my reading list! I’ve just subscribed to her newsletter, as well. Hers is a voice for our times: lyric, unflinching, imaginative, ardent. I am so grateful for her words, her journey, her vision.
Many, many thanks for your prayers, my friend. I feel the difference in day-to-day living: There is a palpable calm I could not access initially, which feels like an inner as well as practical strengthening. Thank you, with all my heart, for your part in this!
Dear Laurie,
Just wanted you to know that I ordered “Reclaiming Quiet” after reading your recommendation here. I just read the introduction, and it is now full of my underlinings. I love not only her message, but also the phrases throughout (i.e. “a certain state of heart,” “called to quiet,” “the holy wild of quiet” and many others), each a prayer in itself. Thanking you today and praying for you and Dreamer.
Oh I’m delighted it’s already speaking to you! So glad you have your own copy. I read it once then immediately started over and just finished it again. It will be one of those books I try to reread every year . . .
Thank you so much for your prayers!!!
Dear Laurie, I’m thinking of you with your dear Dreamer, your new friend to hug, and with the crossword puzzle. <3 I do not have the words, but am here listening and praying for you three. Will continue with that…
Dear Bethany, he is huggable! And reading your pledge to listen and pray is a kind of embrace, in the spirit. How mysterious and knee-bending that, as we uphold one another, arms miles away seem to literally ghost around us . . .
I am so grateful for you!
Oh and another PS, Laurie. I loved Clarkson’s book. She is a breathtakingly lyrical author, like you, and her insights are needed in this chaotic world. Thank you for sharing a quotation from Reclaiming Quiet and for recommending her book. I have loved all her books.
xo
Lynn
She is a wonder! I’ve come to her belatedly, but oh-so-gratefully.
I read the one she cowrote with her mother a few months ago and enjoyed it immensely. And I’ve begun the one with all the book lists!
Reclaiming has captured me. I finished the library copy and immediately bought one, which I am dog-earing and underlining and highlighting and copying quotes from into my journal. I LOVE her writing!
Yes, to all of the above, Laurie, and her memoir, This Beautiful Truth: How God Breaks into Our Darkness, is raw, gorgeous, truthful, hopeful–simply stunning in its beauty and transparency. The problem with Book Girl, which I own and appreciate, is that you will buy new books! Yikes! Do subscribe to her “From the Vicarage” email too. She having married a vicar and living in England reminds me of my dear late friend, Shelly Miller, who forged a similar path, but lived in London, not the countryside. Her website and lyrical writing and photography are still available, thanks to her husband who has left her legacy intact for all to enjoy!
xo
L
Thanks for that title. I just ordered it from the library and am off to track down her “From the Vicarage” next.
Looking forward to both!
Laurie, and as I pray for Bri’s impossible, I’ll pray for yours and Dreamer’s. May the breath of His Spirit buoy you up and fill your heart with hope.
xo
Lynn
Thank you for praying grace into and around and through the “impossibles”!
Precious Sister Scribe Laurie,
I’m so glad that you and Dreamer have *not* stopped dreaming or breathing or loving midst this difficult diagnosis, the arrival of this most unwelcomed guest, dimentia. But the Other Guest who has pulled up a chair to your topsy-turvy table promises to set it right in His own way, and far greater, promises that He will set *all* things right one day.
Ah, dogs. They are such living, breathing, beautiful furry bundles of love, comfort, and yes, sometimes a bit of chaos. But they are gifts from our Creator of creatures great and small. How I wish I could have one again, but *my* unwelcomed guest, vertigo, can’t tolerate one. Alas. \
We’re welcoming another guest soon, my precious brother, who has had a difficult spinal fusion, which will require 24/7 care and “watching.” Brian is certainly not unwelcomed, but we know this will be hard. Love attempts hard things. My other brother and I spelled my 89 y/o mother who’d had a difficult spinal fusion in late 2019 (thank God before COVID & my vertigo just months later, both!), but Brian remains in horrific pain which was supposed to be gone. Mother’s was, and others’ I know. Saint Michael, now 77, will care for us both (God, bless and help him). I will also be having an unusually difficult oral surgery in the near-future, and I’m unsure if this will overlap Brian’s care. We’ll see. But we know for certainty, God sees, and never slumbers, and never sleeps. We pray for Him to oversee this whole affair.
Far be it from me to add to my friend Scribe Extraordinnaire’s wonderful, biblical observation, but might I add this, in the verse preceding? “For nothing will be impossible with God.” The angel was encouraging Mary about her upcoming “Holy-Spirit overshadowing” with the miraculous conception of her elderly cousin Elizabeth who’d soon give birth to whom we now refer as “John the Baptist.” Just as impossible as that miracle was, so Mary’s would be. And yet, the angel assured her that NOTHING WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD! It was then that Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” We can say “let it be,” no matter how hard it may be to do, because while our yes and all it will entail (including the unknown) is impossible to us, it’s not with God. Some way, though it’s impossible for us to imagine how, He will.
Interestingly, this is one passage I read before our yes to God to care for Bri, along with a verse Bri’s wonderful choir director sent to me from the book Jeremiah as an encouragement. The words of Baruch were: “Ah, Lord God! It is You who have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for You.” It seems to me that “nothing is impossible with God” and that “nothing is too hard for Him” are flip-sides of the same heavenly coinage. So as you, Laurie, Dreamer, and Vinnie-Houdini, breathe out your “Let it be” to the God of the impossible, and as Michael, Brian, and I echo the same tune in St. Louis, may we add to that little finger exercise of yours, the last two fingers—ring-finger and pinkie, making it an even ten—a hearty A-MEN!
Thank you for the beauty, insight, encouragement, and unmitigated imagination you offer up here monthly, Laurie. “I love you, Lord,” (to repeat a little ditty I know :)), and I love Laurie!
Xo
Lynn
Oh, I am loving the image of “The Other Guest” at our table, thank you! And you are spot on to highlight the verse preceding which makes all things possible!!! I am so glad to be reminded.
“We can say ‘let it be,’ no matter how hard it may be to do, because while our yes and all it will entail (including the unknown) is impossible to us, it’s not with God. Some way, though it’s impossible for us to imagine how, He will.”
I will carry this close to my heart and treasure it.
Do you know the old Jack Hayford tune setting for the words of Baruch? You’ve reminded me of it, and now I’m humming it as I type.
“Love attempts hard things.” As you and St. M welcome your brother and care for him, may healing mercies encompass you all. May grace transfuse each of you. May the verse that says “The Lord gives his beloved sleep” be true for each one of you during Bri’s recovery and in preparation for your upcoming surgery, as well, my dear friend. God has made YOU valiant in love and mercy. I’m calling to mind the word translated “follow” us all the days of our lives comes from the verb radish. Bet you already know this. Not like a puppy frisking at our heels, Chad Bird writes, but passionately moving in strength “like a celestial stallion . . . hot on our heels . . . all the way to heaven’s gate and into the arms of our Father.”
THAT depth of goodness and mercy, in your household . . . (but nicely, so as not to knock over the furniture)
Reading and absorbing as I head for bed, so more later. But rather than drown in disastrous news updates here, you supply me with the stuff of which sweet dreams are made, the Lord’s deep, restful sleep for one of His beloveds. xo L
Ha! Spellcheck strikes again.
“Radache” not radish!!!
Hope you slept well.
I think we’ may have reached the end of the available thread space for two people here on wordpress. Do email me if you want to correspond more!
Rescue.
Yes.
We’ve walked in rescue all our lives.
Then there are those curves.
Change in direction.
Where rescue(d) become regular road signs along the way.
Companion.
An ambitious choice.
THAT, is a dog.
Thank you for allowing us to be companions as well through your sharing.
Telling.
Non-speaking.
Where we best hear.
I hope you hear His presence deeper.
Still.
Consent.
To change.
But, Lord!?
Assent.
Okay.
In moments.
Like these.
I sing.
A love song.
Missing.
What was.
I know.
We aren’t going in that direction.
But Lord!?
I know.
My redeemer lives.
But it still hurts.
________________
Much love to you and Dreamer, my dear friend.
My eldest son and his wife separated.
It’s a change we too were not expecting.
Your words help.
Dear Rick, my psalmist friend, thank you for each stanza here and the healing wisdom expressed therein, each lifting my heart in different ways.
This one, especially, stands out this morning (as I know others will on other mornings when I return to reread your words):
“Non-speaking.
Where we best hear.
I hope you hear His presence deeper.
Still.”
You have my prayers for you and your wife and precious family as well! I’m so sorry to hear this. Past experience tells me that whether or not we glimpse relational fault lines within and between those we love, the rift, when it comes, jolts our hopes, often a tearing that pains the heart to its core.
May grace and peace keep you strong as you watch and listen and pray, my friend.
And again, thank you so much for your loving prayers for us!
God with you. Seems like almost nothing at times but it is everything. May you know that Presence most intimately—in ways I cannot yet know.
Yes and amen to that divine embrace—however it manifests. Thank you, dear friend and companion on the newly narrowed way. <3
I will pray. I know you both know Abba holds you close. So do I 🩵 So glad Vinster is your canine ministering angel. Barfs, slobbery, thumping tail reality of trust. God bless your trio, mightily.
Nancy, your words of blessing and prayer are a hug I can almost feel through my screen. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!
Rescue animals can bring a new dimension to your life, even during extreme trials. Acting as distractions, companions, even nuisances, they help shift your focus–for the better!
Thanks for sharing this post. You and Dreamer are in my prayers!
Ruth, your knowledge about rescue animals is cheering. I’ll bet you’ve written somewhere about them! He’s patient and affectionate and obedient and seems to be (mostly) settling in pretty well. Occasional pacing . . . I feel sure he misses his people. And it must be utterly baffling, day after day, to wake up in new digs with new people and smells and sounds and rhythms. May he distract us in all the best ways! Thank you so much for your prayers, Ruth.
Oh, Laurie, this breaks my heart that you and Dreamer must walk this road of dementia. I love how you are savoring the moments, clinging to scripture, and even laying hold of “listening to the breathing,” whether it’s Dreamer’s or a prayer within the breath, or both. I’m praising God in advance that he will make your path straight through this difficult journey..
Dear Nancy, thank you for your compassion. I, we, appreciate your caring and prayers so much! Blessings on you, my friend.