Two Fridays ago the Good Rancher moved his heifers to their calving field, aka the horse pasture, and the cows to the Hunt field.
Everything went smoothly.
Everything except, of course, for the antics of ringleader Nod.
Meet Nod.
Does she look like she
would be any trouble at all?!
The weather forecast was predicting rain and snow in a couple of days, so the Good Rancher was extremely thankful everybody could be settled with grass, water, and shelter as they prepared to have their babies.
As the guys did a quick check before lunch, they discovered these two wonderful mothers, who made it look so easy ...
The Mohn girls led the way,
right before the move -
two beautiful calves, no problem!
After lunch the men saddled their horses and they were off. They kept the two mothers and tiny babies back to cause them less stress and fatigue, then they moved the rest of the heifer herd up the fields and across the driveway to the horse pasture gate.
(Included in this herd are bottle calf alumnae Amy and Hanna, Diamond K, Angel, Venus and Serena, Redder, Marta and Gretyl, plus the seven Mohn cows the GR was fortunate enough to purchase at their sale. All these girls might be on their fourth or fifth calf, but they'll always be heifers to me!)
I gathered the five dogs, acknowledging two things: the piercing absence of ScoutyLove; and that my little Earl Grey with his sightless eyes was not so out of place with the other dogs when they were together out here. He couldn't jump on and off the side-by-side to chase cows; but he could feel the air swirling around him and he could hear the cattle thunder by and smell the first hints of spring. And he always loves riding in the side-by-side!
First the heifer group was moved. All seemed to go swimmingly - but I couldn't see Nod anywhere. Nod is Mabel the Holstein's daughter. The freemartin triplet identifies as a heifer and so the GR goodnaturedly lets her stay with the heifers each year. Her brothers, Wynken and Blynken, are in the bull program ...
A shout from Kurt: there was an unusually big cow leading a pack of heifers back to the field they had been in through the winter. The GR rolled his eyes and pointed his horse back in the direction from which they had just come.
"Tell me again why we keep her?" the GR sighed. "Remember Scout's last cattle round-up? Nod led her group over to near Lee Hunt's place and Scouty gathered them all up and brought them home."
I was shocked, shocked. "All the heifers know she's in the Bible!" I said. " 'Lead us, Nod, into temptation!' Of course she has to stay!"
The rebel heifers now safely in the horse pasture, the men turned their attention to the batch of cows they would guide into the Hunt field.
When I first moved to the GR's ranch and I heard talk of "the Hunt field," this is literally what I pictured:
The reality was that the GR and his Deb had purchased this piece of land from their previous employers the Hunts. They named it The Hunt Field, of course. And each Spring the matrons of the herd head as a matter of course to their favourite grove of trees, their choice watering holes, in this incredible pasture area.
As the men rounded up and sorted the cattle, I had a chance to look around to try and discover any signs that Spring was indeed approaching.
There were at least a couple:
The cows - most of whom had been born either in the horse pasture or the Hunt field - made their unhesitating way back home.
"Straight up the hill,turn leftat
the gate. You can't miss it.Don't
mind the dogs - they're harmless."
Right before evening chores the GR took me on a tour of the Hunt field to make sure everyone was comfortable.
It was more beautiful than I had anticipated.
The most amazing part of all was to see these dugouts - full of clean, cool water!
Every cow looked settled and content. The GR turned the side-by-side toward home.
One last dash through the horse pasture and the storm field to check on the hefs. The first mother to calve here this season belonged to the Mohn group of cows. She had not quite finished licking off her calf, but he was already on his feet looking for food.
The next morning the wind was vindictive and the GR was so thankful we had moved the mothers to their birthing fields.
The dogs pouted in the porch, unwilling to be outside but ticked right off that the GR took only Earl Grey with him this morning.
I was ticked off that I had to go check on the heifers in this bluster.
Still, once I was out there I spotted almost immediately the cow-calf pair from the evening before.
As I drove through the open gateway between the horse pasture and the storm field, that baby bull pushed his way through the fence to see what the weird sound was.
I turned off the side-by-side's engine. The calf - not even 24 hours old - did a little four-step of joy, then he turned around and bounded back to his mummy.
The wind died down for a couple of minutes and I could hear that beautiful song of a mother lowing lovingly to her calf. And I was reminded that it is indeed the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!
Tuesday at 7 pm was the last session of our winter-to-spring poetry zoom class "Touched by Words: The Companionship of Poets", and I am sorrier than I can describe to know that next Tuesday I won't be "gathering at the table" with my companions of the last six weeks. The first week our course facilitator, Tim, had requested that each of us describe a table that held significance in our lives. By the end of the exercise, I felt like we would all be welcome at any of those tables.
This is the second "Touched by Words" course I have taken. Tim sends out a folder of poems he has chosen for us to receive that week; and to conclude this course, he asked each of us to bring a poem to the class. Because there would be 16 poems, we would take the last two weeks in order to be able to discuss them and to reflect on their impact on our minds and hearts.
I chose this one:
Lonely for the Country, by Bronwen Wallace
Sometimes these days you think you are ready to settle down.
This might be the season for it, this summer of purple sunsets when you stand in the streets watching the sky, until its colour is a bruised place inside your chest.
When you think of settling down you imagine yourself growing comfortable with the land and remember the sustained faces of men like your grandfather, the ridges of black veins that furrowed the backs of their hands as they squared a county boundary for you, or built once more old Stu McKenzie’s barn exactly as they’d raised it 60 years ago. You watch the hands of the women on market days, piling onions, filling buckets with tomatoes, their thick, workaday gestures disclosing at times what you think you recognize as caring, even love.
At least that’s how it looks from the outside and when you think of settling down, you always think of it as a place.
It makes the city seem imaginary, somehow. As you drive through the streets, you begin to see how the lives there look as if they had been cut from magazines: a blond couple carrying a wicker picnic-basket through the park, a man in faded brown shorts squatting on his front lawn fixing a child’s red bike.
You wish you could tell yourself that this is all too sentimental. You want to agree with the person who said, “There’s no salvation in geography.”
But you can’t and you’re beginning to suspect that deep within you, like a latent gene, is this belief that we belong somewhere.
What you know is that once you admit that it opens in you a deeper need. A need like that loneliness which makes us return again and again to the places we shared with those we can no longer love, empty-hearted, yet expectant, searching for revelations in the blank faces of remembered houses.
As wide as bereavement and dangerous, it renders us innocent as mourners at a graveside who want to believe their loss has made this holy ground and wait for the earth beneath their feet to console them.
Wallace, Bronwen. “Lonely for the Country.” Common Magic. Canada: Oberon Press, 1985.
I shared with the group that it seems like I have always been looking for a place to call my home. And in pondering this poem, I had come to the realisation that maybe the physical land location is not as important as the settling of the foundation in my heart and spirit.
I was the third one to read. I gave a heads up that I might have to leave and give the Good Rancher a hand with a small heifer who was going a little bit crazy. He had brought her into the calving shed and I had visited her before class. She had been lowing, darting around her pen; somehow my voice calmed her down.
"If you do leave, come back and let us know how it went - give us a haiku poem!"
It ended up that the GR did text me and I joined him at the squeeze, where he had already managed to walk the distressed little heifer. He had examined her and feared that the calf inside her was dead.
He was stripped down to his shirt sleeves and jeans and bare hands. I used my phone as a flashlight and steadied the calf puller and held the chain wrapped round the miniature foot. I had managed to grab one glove so at least my hand was protected from the frozen metal.
It was -11° plus wind chill. The howling wind made a mockery of the first-time mother's keening and dashed the brittle tears from my face. "Another half minute and my hands will be frozen," I heard the GR mutter. "The main thing now is to save the mother. She's a good little heifer." Right then she lurched, going down. Somehow my voice reached her and she staggered to her feet again.
Long minutes followed as the GR pulled and the heifer pushed; into the beam of the cellphone the tiny, lifeless head finally appeared.
She was so pretty.
The GR walked the little heifer - perfectly calm now - back to the pen with blind Liesl and two other heifers getting close to delivery. She immediately went to drink water and then started in on the hay. He came back to gather up her baby's body. "She was just too small," he told me. "She went into labour too early." His teeth were chattering. I gathered his vest and jacket and gloves and carried them back to the house.
The class was in the waning minutes of our time together. I debated not reentering the group. There was a discussion going on about Curtis's poetic offering. Maybe if I just stay quietly in the background ... I thought to myself.
Someone noticed I was back and asked how it went with the calf. Others chimed in. I gulped. 5-7-5 syllables for Haiku, I thought to myself. "I will try a Haiku," I said.
Calf too small to live [something about freezing air] Human skin is numb
Silence ensued; I felt, through the zoom screen, sorrow.
And I also felt this: Heard. Held. Home.
Tim read us a final blessing to our time together. Everyone dispersed quietly.
I sat still for a few minutes and a couple of weak haikus came to me, my offering for the valiant little heifer and her first calf.
Calf too young to live Night freezes, above us stars Human heart is numb
The bleak midwinter Dead baby; save the mother All creation groans
Still think home's a place? Your shaking voice brings comfort Maybe you've arrived
[a nod to Bronwen Wallace's poem:] Settling down, a place A bruised place inside your chest - We belong somewhere
The final words Tim had read to send us on our way were from a poem that had come to him for the second session. As he read the last two lines tonight, though, he changed the pronouns. I felt he did that for me, and for the remarkable fellow farmers in our group. Who knew there would be such a gathering of us - a furrow of farmers, perhaps?! - in this class and how frequently our time together these past weeks would be dotted with references to this form of heartbreaking, heartfilling, stewardship to which we have been branded?
Listening Deeply, by Dick Allen
Listening deeply, sometimes - in another - you can hear the sound of a hermit, sighing as he climbs a mountain trail to reach a waterfall or a buddhist nun reciting prayers while moonlight falls through the window onto an old clay floor, and once in a while a child rolling a hoop through the alleyways of Tokyo, laughing, or a farmer, pausing in a rice field to watch geese fly, the thoughts on her lips she doesn't think to say.
A true benedicta.
Sorrow shared is halved New friends, old table, comfort Tonight - I am home
This is what I posted on Facebook on Wednesday last week during the charmingly mandatory lunch hour at Balog Auction - notice the fantastic country-fried steak and mashed potatoes and corn, blanketed in velvety white gravy:
"The steers arrived in Lethbridge last night during less than optimal driving conditions (thank you Kody, Marvin, Cliff, and Kurt who helped with loading!).
I had it slightly better and had a wonderful sleep (thank you, Balog Auction!)
And now it's almost here. This is what the Good Rancher has poured his time, energy, thought and resources into for the entire year. This is the result of no holidays, late nights and early mornings, falling asleep on the couch after 9 pm suppers, missing church and family occasions due to bad weather.
The GR regards his cow-calf operation as God's outfit, and he is just a steward.
He pays attention to the verse in Corinthians that states what is required of a steward is that he is found faithful.
The GR has been faithful to his calling.
Dear Lord, let it be a good sale ..."
*************************************
On the front of the GR's cattle liner
Due to adverse weather conditions the GR's cattle arrived later than we had hoped last Tuesday evening. The snow storm that blew up from nowhere continued to plague our wonderful drivers going home - at least one arrived back at 1 am, to a wife who had been praying for his safety. Another one, I found out later, got home at 2:00.
The thing about auction houses is that the animals usually go up for auction in the order in which they arrive. So I was prepared for a long wait on Wednesday afternoon, and for getting to the bank after it had closed. Oh well, I thought to myself.
**********
Mr. Balog himself ("Mr. Balog was my dad; call me Bob") opens the afternoon auction with the words, "Where's Mark?" Mark is also an extraordinary auctioneer, so if we have both Bob and Mark in the house, it should be a good sale.
Then Bob lays out the the first five in the sale order: there are three ranches from Saskatchewan, one from fairly close by, and the fifth one is the GR!
Mark takes the microphone and it begins. The steers and heifers look big and healthy and the bidding is fast and fierce. Prices are good. As a side note, animals are grouped by weight and often by colour, and the price being bid on is the price per pound. So if you look at line three you see that 13 black steers were in the ring; the average weight of each was 678 lbs; and the per-pound price settled on through the bidding process was "three-ninety-one-and-a-quarTÈRE," as Bob might say.
(That's three dollars and 91 1/4 cents per pound, to be clear. And that's a really good price! I just want you to know that it's not the producers who are bumping beef prices in the stores ...🤪)
I usually sit on the top row of the gallery; but today the heat is cranked so high in retaliation for the outside frigid temperatures that I know I won't be able to take it for long. I slip into a chair on the back row at the side of the ring, and meet the Thorstensons from Saskatchewan. They are second on the roster. Big, beautiful, strong steers and healthy heifers. Bob himself takes the auction chair for them. There is quite a lot of jollity about James, a new MLA in Saskatchewan and their son. ("I knew Bob would say something!" beams Mrs. T.) They've been coming to Balog's since 2007, she tells me. "Bob always gets it done for us."
Georgine Westgard is sitting with the Thorstensons and they are clearly old pals. Jim and Georgine retired from farming in the Oyen area in 2018. Bob, of course, did the herd dispersal and then the farm auction sale. She is here for a visit today, and she includes me in the conversation. She roots for the Thorstensons throughout their sale; and when it comes time for the GR's cattle to enter the ring, she roots for him just as hard. "You have nothing to worry about - they look GREAT! Such good shape! Don't worry about the buyers pulling out one or two! Sometimes it's legit but sometimes they just want to keep people on their toes."
Mark takes over when it comes time to auction off the GR's herd. He has a pitch and rhythm that lulls you unless you're a buyer; then you better be paying close attention! He fights for quarter of a cent per pound, as does Bob - who, even as Mark auctions, is adding the colour commentary: "One iron! No implants or steroids! Home raised!" And the price goes up a quarter of a cent. Every quarter penny counts!
I ask Georgine why she thought two steers are pulled out of a pack to be auctioned separately. "I'll go ask the buyer!" she declares. It seems they look "a little soggy." Sounds legit to me. Slightly lower price the second time around. I would choose crispy over soggy too; wouldn't you?
The GR's charolais-cross steers show up in the ring and they take my breath. A ring full of goldenness. I say to the two ladies, "When I see how gorgeous these steers are, I feel guilty for ever having evil thoughts about the GR not going on holiday or us not doing more as a couple ..."
They laugh knowingly. "We all feel that way. Don't feel bad. But it's a good day today, isn't it?!"
Suddenly, Georgine lets out a little yelp. A steer is down. The other steers run out of the ring through the exit door, and still he sits.
The room falls silent.
I can hardly breathe.
The ring men move in to try to get him up, but Mister Balog takes control. "WAIT. Everybody wait. Give him a minute. Give him another minute ..."
And wouldn't you know it, that little steer gets himself up and walks out of his own volition. No limping. No foaming at the mouth. No hesitation. Completely calm.
Bob was standing right beside me by this point. "Just winded," he reassures me. "He'll be okay. We'll claim him on insurance so you don't have to worry. He'll be fine."
Bob Balog cares, not only about the animals but also about their people.
A small group of mixed colours arrives in the ring. The GR calls them "funny colours." I call them "Joseph's coat." They are so beautiful to me.
They sell just as well as everyone else. Take THAT, GR! 💖
Across the ring from me are four people very dear to the GR's heart: Justin, Kryston, Clay, and Oaklee, with whom the GR is completely smitten and calls Annie Oakley. The next generation in the family teaching their next generation the ins and outs of ranching life while they figure it out for themselves.
Kryston gives me a recipe for homemade yoghurt - easy and saves money. I have rarely seen someone so industrious. Oaklee has her mama's dimple at the corner of her mouth. Clay wants to be a rancher just like his dad.
Justin bids for and buys some of the GR's steers. He has set up his own feedlot and is starting to build his herd.
When the GR's sale is over, I deke into the kitchen to retrieve the doughnuts I had picked up from the Prairie Cottage Bake Shop in Brooks, on my way to Lethbridge, just as they were closing on Tuesday. This bakery makes doughnuts the old-fashioned way, and they taste the way most donut people dream of doughnuts tasting nowadays. I had called the bakeshop as I was preparing to leave for Lethbridge to see if I could reserve five or six dozen.
The owner herself answered the phone. "I have a few left but nowhere near what you need ... Wait a minute - we're pretty caught up here. I could make up a small batch just for you!"
I arrived at 4:30. The doughnuts were done. "We just have to box them. You'll have to leave the boxes open so that they can cool!" I listened to the sweet sounds of a cappella hymns in the background as the two ladies finished up the order.
After the GR's cattle are sold, doughnuts are passed around to everyone in the house who wants one, and every morsel is appreciated. "What's the occasion?" I am asked several times.
"The GR and I just made it to our tenth anniversary. Many people were pretty sure we wouldn't make it to five! So we wanted to celebrate with the folks who understand this way of life. Our people."
"Happy anniversary. Good sale."
(Prairie Cottage Bake Shop Brooks, Alberta 403-501-0111
Just saying, in case you find yourself in Brooks!)
I go to the office to get the cheque and paperwork. As always, here is Maureen, Bob's sister and the person who runs the administration of this place. How she keeps everything straight, especially on sale day, I do not know.
How she keeps the song in her heart, I do know. There next to her is her daughter Shandi, back from maternity leave. "She's all I have," Maureen had told me quietly, numbly, when Shandi encountered difficulties in labour and delivery last year.
Now Shandi's beautiful boy is being cared for by his other grandma for the two days a week that Shandi works next to her mom like she always has. And Maureen's heart circle has expanded.
I write my thankyou cards to the buyers who have purchased the GR's cattle. We are so grateful to them all and pray that the steers will thrive under them and that many people will be nourished through their efforts.
Goodbyes said, I make my way to the truck, start the engine to warm things up, and punch up the number on my phone.
He answers immediately.
"It's done.
How much were you hoping to get from this sale?"
I say the exact same thing every time I go to a sale. I fear that he might think I'm crazy for asking, because what's done is done. But I fear even more that he might be disappointed, that despite all his hard work we have come up short.
He gives me his number. "Are we even close?"
I flash back to all the times we have gone through this, the times we have not met his number. How he immediately reassures me, despite his own disappointment, that all will be well. That God will take care of us.
I look down at the breakdown of the sale given to me from the auction house. I take a deep breath.
"Honey, we are not close.
Honey, you remember the verse in Ephesians about '... Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think'?
Honey. That's where we are ..."
Silence.
Even from four hours away I can feel the weight of the past two years start to roll off his shoulders. I hear him draw in a deep breath and slowly exhale.
"Thank You, dear God," he whispers into the phone.
"AND I can get to the bank in time before it closes! I had better leave now, though ..." I blink my way down town and pull myself together as I enter the bank's parking lot on my second attempt.
I go into the bank and - happy day! - there is not a line up, AND they are debuting a new BMO commercial. There is something about this guy that I just love. I think it's his inherent tongue-in-cheek joyfulness. I am so fortunate to get called to the teller's station where you sit down to do your banking, so I get to watch it a couple of times.
The bank teller thinks this is hilarious. She's laughing harder than I am. Only, she's not laughing at the commercial ...
I drive home. As I go through Taber I stop at Taco Time and get two taco salads and a burrito, to go. Beef, of course. And the large Mexifries, please. After all, it's a very special occasion!
I battle through some fog and blowing snow, but nothing like the day before. As I pull into the driveway I see a text from the GR that he had sent at 5:30.
I just have to park on the driveway for a moment to gather my thoughts. Our calving season is supposed to start the last half of April! This calf is not premature. The mother is a cow, not a first calver. Seriously? The whole cycle has started again IMMEDIATELY without even a day's reprieve?!
This, the last week in the course, the prompt was: "Every angel is terrible ..." (Rainer Maria Rilke).
This is what came into my head:
------------------------------------
O Lucifer, star of the morning, Have we all been tarred with your gorgeous, careless brush?
You, the one who enjoyed fellowship with the Almighty! You let it go to your head, did you - as a result you hurtled,
the most magnificent peacock, sapphire and emerald and onyx and gold feathers Tumbling
from the heavens Cascading
through the firmament To land in the mysterious murkiness called "In the beginning."
Your metamorphosis into the loveliest of serpents in the garden
made us who watched from above regard you with fear and awe. Michael, Gabriel trying to fill your sandals shuddered as you were banished and slithered away.
Where did you go?
Would human kind now believe that every angel is terrible?
And so we rallied ourselves. We organized: Battalions Regiments Brigades Divisions - A heavenly host. Seraphim to guard the holy of holies Cherubim to protect humankind from themselves The great princes: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel And one throne now vacant, O Lucifer, Star of the morning.
Guardian angels Earth angels Hark, the herald angels sing.
An army of goodness.
Thousands upon thousands of us, working tirelessly to protect and defend.
And yet, still they're drawn to you, O Lucifer
Prince of darkness Roaring lion Tempter of God Himself - Terrible, beautiful Star of the morning
On this fourth week, the writing prompt that hit me between the eyes was this:
"I stand on all fours, my fur ..."
I couldn't actually read this piece - or any piece, for that matter - aloud this week. But here's what I wrote:
I stand on all fours, my fur rising ever so slightly from my suddenly unfamiliar body. (Is it my body that is unfamiliar, or is it everything else?)
Last Tuesday night I went to bed, stretched out as usual on the blanket on the floor behind my Friend's bed. She turned out the light, then she said, like she says every night, "Sleep time, SLEEP time, my little Earl Grey. Sleep time, my Faithful Friend. See you in the MORning!"
But the morning never came. The dark night got blacker and blacker. The Good Rancher got up and made his breakfast and left. My Friend got up and called to me.
I didn't know where she was.
I didn't know where I was.
I bumped into a hard edge and did not know how to get around it so I stopped. I needed water, I needed to go outside, I needed to have my Friend say, "Good MORning, my little Earl Grey!"
She came back to find me. I almost didn't hear her footsteps. I was so scared that my entire body was shaking. I could hardly breathe.
"Come on, my dog! What's going on?" I looked at where I thought her voice was coming from. She cried my name like she never had before - "GRAAAAAAYYY!"
She pushed me with her legs and put her hand on my head. She got me to where I could feel cool air on my face. So many smells. Birds chirping. Cats meowing. Musket yapping from the porch. I was so confused that I just froze.
I put out my foot, but there was nothing there. Suddenly I felt her next to me. Her hands on my shoulders. "Step!" she screamed, "Step! Step! Step! Step!"
I didn't know what to do. She had never raised her voice at me before. Except that time when she saw me with a baby barn kitten in my mouth. Was she angry with me, like then?
I heard tapping right below me. "Step," she whispered. I could feel her breath on my face. Salt water dripping onto my nose. I leaned toward her and my foot dropped down to reach a spot just below me. "Step," she said again and that same tapping below me. I followed her breath.
And then I felt the cold bristles of grass beneath me. "Go, on, Earl Grey," she said. I inhaled the scent of previous outside visits, both mine and the other dogs'. Some stronger than others. I took a few steps into this blackness. I had to pee, but I was too scared to lift my leg.
She called to me and I heard her truck running. Maybe we were going for a ride? But I could not find her or the truck. Suddenly she was in front of meIbumpedintoherlegs. The Good Rancher was there and he picked me up and put me in the truck. She was already sitting right next to me.
The movement, the noise, the smells. I could hear big trucks coming toward me and I pressed myself low on the seat because I couldn't see them and I was scared they were going to run over me.
We stopped at the place where the people give me treats, and the girl came out to help my Friend get me out of the truck. They put a noose around my neck and started to pull me, but I did not know where I was going so I sat down.
And I heard my Friend's voice. "My Faithful Friend," she said. "Come with me, Earl Grey."
They got me into a small room. I tried to walk around but I kept bumpingbumping into a huge box in the middle of the room. I put my head on my Friend's lap and everything was quiet.
But not for long. Two other people came into the room and they made my Friend put a muzzle on me. Then they poked me in my foot, and they put something cold near my heart, and I felt whooshing air near my eyes. I started to pant.
My Friend and that girl got me back into the truck. The truck started and then there was a howling sound, like the coyotes on the hills at home every night. I tried to reach for her hand, which was always there when I put my head on the console, but I fell off the seat.
The howling stopped. So did the truck. The door next to me opened. She helped me get back up onto the seat.
We got home. I got onto the floor of the truck but when she tried to get me down I couldn't move. I could only shake and pant.
She went away and came back and there was somewhere hard to put my foot. It was covered with something soft that smelled like her jacket. "Step," she said quietly. "Step."
And I was on the blessed ground again.
This last week has been long. Cold weather. Accidents in the living room. I can't find my food until I am standing in the bowl. I spill the water. My head hurts all the time. I sleep a lot. The dogs avoid me, but those kittens stay close to me now.
Nothing is the same.
Except for one thing.
A long time ago she went away for a night, and when she came back the next afternoon, she smelled of blood and bandages and medicine and sadness. We could not jump up on her, and she did not bend down to give us our milk time, milk time. Something was wrong.
She lay on the couch and I lay on the floor next to her. When she got up she went to the small room with the loud rushing of water. I felt I needed to go look after her. So I waited for her outside the door.
And from that day on, whenever she goes to the small room with the loud rushing of water I always lie down, blocking the door, waiting for her, protecting her from the unseen enemy. Now everything is unseen, everything is the enemy.
Still. I still know when she is in that place, and I have still been able to find the door. And I would still protect her with my whole pitiful being.
She opens the door. I stand on all fours, my fur turning into shield and breastplate and helmet, and my useless eyes glowing jade green. I stand on guard for her.
And I hear her say the words she always says as she bends to stroke my back and head:
"Grey? Are you waiting for me, Grey? Oh Grey, you ALWAYS wait for me. THANK you for waiting for me, Earl Grey. Thank you for being my Faithful Friend. Do you love me, Grey? I think you LOVE me!! From the FIRST time you saw me, you loved me, and you wanted to BE my friend. And now, you are my FAITHful Friend, Earl Grey, and now, you are MY dog."
Everything has changed, but nothing has changed. I would give my life for her.
