Today Is a Good Day

This week Miss Riley died.

It wasn’t a tragic death—like when you hear of a senseless accident on the roads, or when a climber, doing what they love, makes one mistake and then never comes home. 

We knew Riley was going to die. She had fought a brave fight, but the time had come to open the door and let her walk out.

We just needed to choose the day.

I read recently that we have three aspects in our life that change in ratio to each other as we age: time, money, and health. When you are young,  you have lots of time and health, but maybe not much money. In your working years you have lots of health and money, but not much time. And then, finally, there’s a time in life when you have both money and time, but maybe you can’t enjoy the health you once had.

In any stage of life it’s easy to get caught up chasing what’s missing and forget that life always has a beginning, middle and end. Riley reminds me of that. 

Riley got up every morning like it was her first one. And she knew what she liked. If she wanted to dig a hole on a hot summer afternoon and lie in the cool earth or take a shortcut and plough through a patch of lilie’s it didn’t matter how many “No’s!” we called out; Riley was going her way.

She wasn’t worried how old she was, that she needed help to get into the back of the car or that her days of running alongside me as I skied the local trails were behind her. 

Today was always a good day for Miss Riley.

She didn’t think about time, money or health; she just gave love and got love. And somehow she knew she was making it a good day for us. Whatever we were doing, Riley wanted to be there. In the garden, on the trails, in my office, eating dinner. In fact, I think we both started taking afternoon naps together. 

As I settled on the couch I knew she was listening—tracking my move. After a pause, I would whisper “Riley…nap time.” A minute would pass, maybe two, and then the clip, clip of her approaching on the hardwood, a wet muzzle to my face—as if saying “All good. I’m here”—and then, with a big sigh, she would settle on the floor nearby. And we would both sleep.

When Emerson wrote “This time, like all times, is a good time if we but know what to do with it.” he was writing about Miss Riley. You can bemoan the fact life is passing, or—like Riley—bravely swim out one more time and bring the stick back and then look up, tail wagging, and wait for the next throw.