Our pace will slow later today, and the week will offer more time to sit down and write proper long-form letters describing our first three days. But a national park awaits our pre-dawn arrival. Early birds getting their worms without the crowds thing and all.
Yesterday at dawn, we had a woodland trail to ourselves. When we came out, we encountered Bob and Seamus, ages 77 and 6, and no one else.
Notice the leashed harness, an elaborate contraption.
The road trip version of me is more like my younger self: unrestrained, free-flowing, more curious, and less of a solitary. That’s one of the crucial aspects of authentic travel for anyone, but it is especially essential for a fellow who craves the solitude of a quiet life. As the poet Derek Walcott mused, “I read; I travel; I become.”
Or, as the pondering philosopher Pooh stated through the pen of A.A. Milne, “You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”
As we approached, I watched Jeff use his strength to hold Seamus’s hips up while the dog’s rear legs, especially the booted right paw, tended to drag.
My first words were, “That’s a lot of love right there.”
“It works. He’s getting better,” Jeff said.
Don’t you love it when a dance begins so easily?
Then Seamus tried to pull Jeff so he could get closer to Emily and Samwise, and I could see the strength and balance Jeff needed to be a caretaker.
(Forgive me, but it had me thinking of a handful of you readers who serve as caretakers for your loved ones. It also brought me back to my years with Will and his strokes.)
“I got the harness from our vet, but I added the extra line and the PVC handles to give Seamus space so I was not tripping over him,” Jeff told me.
We talked of caregiving, its exhaustion, and the unwritten contract.
“A stroke at only six?”
“Yes, but he is doing so much better. At first, he could not even move his back legs. Slowly, he is getting stronger.”
“Jeff, that’s quite a lot of work for a 77-year-old.”
“I’ve got the time,” he said modestly.
I noticed how this quiet man, a proud fellow, at first reserved, felt like someone had recognized what Seamus had been through and what Jeff goes through daily. He slowly opened up as I told him about Will, but I was mindful not to steal from his story.
Have you noticed how we tend to do that more in the social media age and not just while online? It has spilled into our face-to-face interactions.
Someone will tell us something profound, something that matters to them, and it’s so easy to begin our response with I or ME or MY instead of YOU. And just like that, the beauty of the dance is marred; it becomes cheapened.
I noticed myself doing this a decade ago and realized I was robbing from those with something to say.
I let Jeff know only enough that I could relate to him but returned to asking him questions.
“With a name like Seamus, you must be an Irishman.”
“My wife named him. She was born in Ireland.”
“Does your wife have a good Irish name, too?”
His eyes turned inward toward the past; he was stepping hesitantly out on thin ice.
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