I’ve got a space on my new back porch where I spend my mornings now - a porch that isn’t just mine but is mine - there are two cafe chairs and a little bistro table with ivy in a green pot and an empty red one beside it waiting for an inhabitant.

I can’t watch the sun creep up the horizon from here the way I used to, but I can sit comfortably with the laptop and my cup of coffee and ignore my neighbors cat as it zig-zags around me and bumps its head into the table and talks in a language I can’t translate while the sky changes from deep blue and black to a sorbet inspired mess.

I’m sitting here replaying the scene from 12 hours ago when  I arrived “home” to this place that still doesn’t feel like “home” to find that my pet of nearly two years - Grover - didn’t survive the weekend.

Grover never did tricks for me, he never curled up with me in bed or looked at me funny when I cried or gave me a warm welcome when I opened the door at the end of the day. He never got table scraps or had to go to the vet or needed to be groomed, but he was sweet and low maintenance and swam laps around his own glass home for my zoning out pleasure.  His presence alone lowered my heart rate, his deep blue scales lit up a room and his antics with the snail/maid this winter were legendary.

This weekend as he was slipping away unsupervised, my dear old friend Codie turned 31 in his new world, my boy Ken revealed more of what makes him whole (and in doing so became more remarkable with his tender places revealed) and my solar urticaria reminded me yet again that even spectacularly comforting and familiar things must be dealt with in moderation.

You and I are wandering.  There’s no set course or definitive finish line, there’s no way of knowing when you’ve “won” the game so the best we can do is be real and true and move forward with great force and passion issuing love and acceptance and forgiveness (to others and ourselves), and if we’re lucky, we will be loved in return.

This is my wish for you.

Grover
2004-2006