Antithesis

I have lost my identity. Not to some Internet thieves, but to a 65-pound ball of play called Rusty the Goofball.

I had a friend tell me once that I was remembered though small encounters because I'm somewhat gregarious. But that seems to have been overwhelmed by Rusty.

Someone stopped me at the gym one day to ask if I owned a red retriever. "I saw you sitting in the median with what has to be the best behaved dog on Earth." Well, at times.

If we go to restaurant patios, pretty waitresses bring Rusty a bowl of water. My chances of getting a refill are much more limited. Friends question his well being before mine. The homeless guys working the nearby street corners know him. A neighbor greets me with "how is the happiest puppy on Earth?"

He is hard to overlook. He needs to greet everyone. I mean everyone. When he does cross a street, our system is he must sit, wait and then when I say go he turns around to put a portion of his leash in his mouth, do a vertical leap and then cross. The vertical leap is fairly common. All feet in the air, tail slashing, body twisted. The goofiest dance you've ever seen. Pure joy.

He eats lemons, tomatoes and tree logs. He steals paper money, tears it into pieces, but doesn't eat the pieces.

All this is actually a life reminder. It was one year ago today, I lost my best friend at that time. Often, he had been my only friend. It left a gaping hole. One I honestly questioned I'd survive. Not just from that single incident, but that it was the topping on a series of blows that brought me to my knees and now lower.

Months later, Rusty came along in happenstance. It just turned out he was the right personality with the right instinct for me. Not a me that was with the previous friend, but the me right now. In fact, he helped create the me right now.

In the reality that true loyalty goes both ways, I don't forget Sam, sometimes miss him. I remember the pain he was in the final days. The look of abject fear when he was taken in for the final decision I had to make is emblazoned in my consciousness. Yet I also remember the experiences we shared, the times we went through together and the support Sam provided.

As importantly, I look at then and now and realize how one day in life can be the antithesis of another. For the feelings of one year ago today, I get to view the wild abandon with which Rusty rushes across a yard, bounds into the air to pounce on a football with a full growl and then come back at me like a fullback at a goal line. I am daily amazed at the hours he can spend sitting on a couch in an upstairs room looking out the window, nose awiggle and eyes vigilant for whatever the world brings by. I can absorb some of the ecstasy that comes with getting to go for a walk, even though it happens every day. I can appreciate how he wants to hurry to a street corner so he can do his sit, wait, go process and prove his behavior.

You know what today is like. Sometimes that's not all that good. You can't ever guess what tomorrow will be. Sometimes that's better than you could ever imagine.