Show Up

When Katie, my happy-go-lucky Springer Spaniel, was alive, she and I took a walk around all the paths in our back yard every evening weather permitting. I didn’t always want to go. She consistently persuaded me with her gleeful anticipation.

She’s been gone more than two years, but I can still picture her out there among the roses and the aspens. What a girl. She was never more content than when she was by my side, and she never tired of poking her nose in familiar bushes in the hope of discovering something new.

Her “cute dog trick” (as my mother called it) was to sniff out mysterious creatures in the sandy soil, stare at them motionless like a hunting spaniel that had spied a pheasant, and then pounce. She’d wiggle her butt and her little stump of a tail, spin joyously in circles, and then do it all over again.

We never actually saw what she was chasing, but we decided to nickname them graboids after the colossal sandworms in the campy movie Tremors. She didn’t catch a single one, but she made it her lifelong mission to try.

With tears in our eyes, this was the last story we shared with our veterinarian as Katie drifted off to her final sleep at the ripe old age of 14. I like to think she’s merrily hunting graboids in heavenly rows of flowers and fruit trees, waiting for me to finally show up.

I still like to stroll around the yard weather permitting. Sure, I’m out there almost daily from spring to fall weeding, pruning, deadheading, and fertilizing. It’s not the same, though, as just enjoying the space.

Sometimes I simply soak up the beauty of the roses I so carefully tend. I take pictures by the thousands and sit on my stone “count your blessings” bench doing exactly that.

Sometimes I see miracles. Once while approaching our ornamental pear tree, I looked up just in time to see a mother hummingbird feed her fledging offspring by sliding her long beak down the little bird’s throat. I stopped dead in my tracks and watched in awe.

I’d like to think I appreciate everything in life as much as I appreciate my garden. I’m not perfect, but I do try. Especially as I’ve grown older, and life has naturally grown shorter, the value of walking in constant gratitude has come into sharper focus.

It’s not just about rare moments like seeing the Northern Lights or your daughter in a wedding gown. It’s the everyday gifts – the majesty of a fiery sunset, a song that unexpectedly touches your heart, the last poignant lines of a soulful book, your goofy dog romping in the snow.

Maybe the best thing we can do is live every day like we’re hunting graboids. It doesn’t matter if the prize is something no one else can see, or that we may never actually catch it. We can still delight in the chase. We just have to show up.