Today is National Dog Day. I know this because the first thing I saw on Facebook this morning was a post from 2014 showing our three beloved dogs Aston, Millie and Percy.

Aston was the most beautiful red Golden Retriever there ever could be. He was Evans’ Aunt Jane’s puppy when she was diagnosed with extremely advanced metastatic cancer. Evans promised he would take care of Aston and from then on, Aston was Evans’ shadow. He liked the rest of us fine, but he was Evans’ dog. He loved his toys (which he did not share and the other dogs understood that), playing ball, and sitting next to Evans.

When Aston was a few years old, we moved to a house without close neighbors. We decided he needed a companion, so we adopted Millie. Millie was supposed to be a “spaniel-hound mix” and we thought she might be about forty pounds full grown. We were wrong. She was a Spaniel-Great Pyrenese (emphasis on the Great Pyrenese) mix and she weighed 115 pounds fully grown. She was our pretty princess, the unchallenged alpha dog, and the owner of all the bones. We never worried about intruders, of any kind, while Millie was around. She efficiently dispatched any animals silly enough to invade her fenced yard although she finally made peace with the deer that lived just beyond the fence.

In 2007, my mother decided she wanted a Boston Terrier. A lady advertised a one-year-old Boston in the paper and we met her at Shelby park to have a look at him. There has never been a worse-looking dog. He was scrawny, covered in mange, had a cleft lip (common in Bostons), and was just generally pitiful. I agreed to discuss buying him after we had our vet look at him. Four hundred dollars later our vet told us the only good things about Percy were his prostate and his nostrils. I called the lady, told her how much our vet bill was and she said to keep him. Mother did. She adored him. She fed him constantly – usually from the table. His mange cleared up and he grew in a pretty brindle coat. He went everywhere she went and slept under the covers in her bed.

As Mother grew older, she and Percy spent more time at our house. Perhaps something had happened in Percy’s first year, or maybe he was just a Boston Terrier with a Napolean complex, but he hates other dogs. He tolerated Millie because she dominated him from the first time they met – and she had about a hundred pounds on him. Aston was the most non-threatening dog that ever lived and even Percy couldn’t not like him, so the three of them became something of a pack.

In 2011, Mother died and Percy came to live at our house permanently. They were three completely different dogs with different personalities and not especially fond of each other, or so we thought.

In the Spring of 2016, Aston was diagnosed with an inoperable tumor on his mouth. The vet recommended palliative care. He lived just over a year and was perfectly happy as long as Evans was in his line of sight. Evans will miss Aston for the rest of his life.

Millie and Percy persevered and in the summer of 2018, they joined us in Crested Butte. They both loved it here, but Millie was in her element. It was cool all the time. There were fields of wildflowers everywhere. Percy loved to race along every trail, going first and fastest while Millie slowly and steadily checked out every bush, plant, and tree. Millie loved to wade in the mountain streams as long as the water didn’t go past her belly. Percy stayed closer to shore.

Evans always walked them late at night, usually after I had gone to bed. One night, as they were walking down the parking lot in front of our townhouse, both dogs took off running and barking like mad. It was all Evans could do to get them under control when he saw what they were after. A Cinnamon Bear was on top of the dumpster. The bear wisely ran away. Since both Millie and Percy were spoiling for a fight, Percy bit Millie. Millie bit him back, in the head, with all her teeth. I am pretty sure that is the last time Percy bit Millie.

In early 2019, we took Percy and Millie in for their regular check-ups. The vet called and asked lots of questions about Millie. Was she eating? Had she acted differently? Had she lost weight? We assured him Millie was her usual self. He explained that her blood work was “not consistent with life.” She continued to be our pretty princess until one day, she wasn’t. Just like that, she was very sick and then she was gone.

I thought Percy wouldn’t miss the other two. They had never been that close. He and Millie had battled for the alpha role their entire lives. They didn’t cuddle up on the same bed or seek each other out. They just lived together. Which goes to show how much I know.

Shortly after Millie died, Percy began to fail. He went deaf. Then he went blind. He stopped eating. We thought he was dying. The vet told us he was diabetic. Considering we called him our little pig-dog, no one was all that surprised. He missed his pack and without them, he grew old. We gave him insulin twice a day and life went on, just slower and lonelier.

We brought him out here last summer and he did fine. He could still outrun us on the trails. We kept him on a short leash because he thought he could beat up all the dogs that crossed his path and there are probably more dogs in Crested Butte than there are people. He traveled back and forth in the truck like a champ. We brought him again in January and he tackled the snow and ice like a sled dog. He even wore little red snow boots.

We thought this summer would be the same, but at almost fourteen, he is feeling and showing the years. He is now so deaf and blind that he doesn’t notice the other dogs. He hasn’t picked a single fight. Sometimes we carry him up and down the stairs. He is slower and his walks don’t go as far.

Earlier this summer he stopped eating. Our vet here said he had abscessed teeth. Before we agreed to surgery, we asked if he could get better or if we needed to make a hard decision. We went forward with the surgery and he came through like a champ. He remained a very picky eater and we thought maybe he was just spoiled. Again, this dog has been fed every treat known to man or dog his entire life. We thought maybe he was old and crotchety and would be fine if I just cooked him chicken and fed it to him warm. When even that didn’t work, we again called the vet. They said to bring him in.

They ran labs and checked his blood sugar. The labs were fine. His blood sugar was completely off the chart. He was so very sick. We didn’t know if he could live. We didn’t know what we should do. We discussed it calmly. At what point do you make the hard call? Then I started crying. We called our vet in Nashville. Evans talked because I couldn’t. Both vets, there and here, thought he could get better. We agreed to try, one more time.

We picked him up from the vet today, on National Dog Day, along with a doggy blood glucometer and an IV port still in his leg. They thought he would do better at home but didn’t want to have to run a new IV if he didn’t. The vet tech who explained the glucometer said several times how sick he was. I carried him to the car, not at all sure we had made the right choice.

When we have a dog, their job is to love us. Our job is to love and care for them. Part of that is to make the hard choices when it is time to let them go. I should have let Millie go a week earlier than we did. I promised myself I would not do that with Percy. When he is too sick to live, I would hold him and say goodbye. As we drove home I couldn’t decide if I was scared, mad, or sad. Maybe I was all three.

He has been lying by me while I have written this. A few minutes ago, he got up and pawed my leg to take him for a walk. This sick, old, battered, bandaged little creature just ran down a hill and up a hill, sniffing and peeing on everything he found worthy. Little neighbor children who he has ignored all summer were riding their bikes and he chased one of them. CHASED HER ON HER BIKE! I sobbed all the way up the parking lot.

He will tell me when it is time. It is not today. We will figure out how to regulate his insulin. I have the vet’s personal cell number and am to call him every time we check his blood to get the insulin right. I have two different kinds of diabetic dog food in the pantry and frozen chicken in the freezer. He’s the last man standing. He is more of a little old man than he is a pig dog, but, he is not done.

It is National Dog Day. In the Clements house, that dog is Percy and he has a lot left to do.

So we are well into week two of the Covid-19 quarantine. Actually, at our house, it is closer to week three for me and week six for Evans. He had a knee replacement on February 17. Other than trips to physical therapy, he was inside for two weeks. At the end of those two weeks, we went to a party where we, and everyone else attending, got the flu. (You can’t make this up.) So, we are at week three for me and week six for Evans.

I spent the first week when this was ramping up in complete and intentional denial. I could not believe that anything would force the American people into their homes, close schools, restaurants, businesses, etc… It wasn’t until I went to the grocery store and I was the only person not acting like it was a zombie apocalypse that I realized maybe I was not paying the right kind of attention.

I posted on Facebook asking if I was crazy or if everyone else had lost their minds. My friend Deborah Lovett provided a very clear response that yes, my head was in the sand (or up my backside) and then she provided several links to stories about people in Italy stuck in their homes with the corpses of their loved ones. I did the reasonable thing and burst into tears.

A few days later, Evans said, “You should do a blog post.” Being a writer who had neglected her blog, my response was, “The last thing anyone wants is another blog post about this nightmare. I have nothing, NOTHING encouraging to say.” Then I burst into tears again. Evans did the only thing he could think of. He put me in the car, took me for a drive, and bought me a Dairy Queen dip cone (via the drive-thru of course.) People, a DQ dip cone will not fix everything, but in my experience, every possible crisis is mitigated by a dip cone.

My dip cone cure began in 1998 when my father was gravely injured and being cared for at Centennial Hospital. My uncle brought me a dip cone from the onsite Dairy Queen. Soft-serve vanilla with a waxy chocolate topping that had to be eaten systematically and intentionally was enough to distract me for five whole minutes. Over the next two years, as my father’s condition worsened, I drove a million miles between Nashville, Harriman, and Greeneville. At some point on each trip, I had a dip cone. It changed nothing, but it made everything better for just a minute.

I realize that dip cones are not really the answer to this scary time. Neither is baking, or binge-watching The Good Place, or cleaning out closets. But, those are good things. Those are things that we forgot that we love to do. I showed Langley a video of The Carol Burnett Show skit where Tim Conway talked about the Siamese elephants. She had never seen it. She laughed until she cried. I love to play Pente and haven’t played since Mother died. Langley is not yet wiping the board with me as Mother did, but it is only a matter of time. We have a puzzle set up in our house for the first time in years. When did we stop doing puzzles? I love puzzles.

We can’t change any of this. We can’t “fix it.” But we can reconnect. We can remember to laugh. We can find ways to be kind. We can find all the things we have forgotten we loved. We can get through whatever is next, one dip cone at a time.

A close friend lost his father right before we were to leave. Evans had known the man who died all his life and I had known him since I met Evans. He was everything a Nashville gentleman should be. We put off the trip so that we could attend his funeral and honor his life.

A week later than planned we finally headed west arriving a day before Evans’ sister and three friends did. If you are going to host four house guests make sure that they are low-maintenance, fun-loving, long-time friends who bring their own Prosecco. We had so much fun getting settled and enjoying our company, I neglected to write. I did finally write a great blog post about these girls after they left, then never posted it. I lacked photos, then got distracted, then it was too late.

A few days after our guests left the phone rang. I heard Evans say, “Of course we are coming home.” I knew someone we loved had died. The next morning we drove back across country to celebrate the life of Evans’ fabulous Aunt Patricia who deserves her own blog post. While we were home, Evans’ mother had difficulty breathing. Her COPD was worsening, and she was hospitalized. We stayed in Nashville until she was able to go home. Then once again drove back to CB. There isn’t much to say about that trip other than La Quinta allows dogs and that is a good thing.

We did finally go fishing, together and separately. I turned my fly fishing expeditions into blog posts, but they were sporadic at best.

Evans had planned a short trip back to Nashville and I had a girlfriend come to visit. She was a godsend and we had a wonderful time, which of course meant I didn’t write one word while she was there. While Evans was in Nashville, his mother’s breathing again worsened and she went back to the hospital. He, of course, stayed in Nashville until she was better. After my friend left I enjoyed the views and realized how much I prefer Crested Butte when Evans is with me.

While Evans was gone, a friend in Crested Butte convinced me to go hiking. It was a debacle, so that made a great blog post. Then the next day two more friends arrived from Nashville and I was back to having fun, entertaining, dragging them straight up mountains (behind my hiking friend Terri) and eating all the food in Crested Butte. Evans got home one day before they left and took us across Kebler pass to the Crystal Mill and lunch at our favorite Colorado restaurant, Slow Groovin’ Barbecue. I was going to write about their visit, but Evans was finally back in CB so we played instead.

My friends left on Monday and on Thursday I followed them back to Nashville for a wedding. It was an amazing wedding, truly worth the trip home. It may become a blog post but I will have to get permission to share the photos. We had a wonderful time.

While I was home I visited my mother-in-law, who I adore, every day. Her health was fragile, but she was home and stable. Or so I thought. I flew back to Crested Butte early Monday morning and by Monday evening the situation had grown progressively and irrevocably worse. Evans spent much of Tuesday on the phone with his sister and flew home on Wednesday.

I packed the necessities, loaded the truck, downloaded audiobooks from the Nashville Library, and Percy and I headed east. I took a different route that was slightly longer but included all interstates and consistent cell service. Again, there is no way to make that trip interesting unless unexpected things happen and happily nothing did. By late Friday afternoon, the truck, dog, and I were back in Nashville to stay. Harriette died on Monday.

This was not our year to be in Crested Butte. What time we were there was great. I loved our guests. I got to eat at my favorite restaurants. The wildflowers had a super-bloom year and were beautiful well into August. I actually hiked and mastered the roll-cast with my fly rod. But, we needed to come home. We wanted to come home. As hot as it is, we are very glad to be home.

As her health began to worsen, Harriette insisted that Langley take her dog, Dirk, a ten-year-old miniature poodle. You can imagine how Percy, our deaf, diabetic, villain of a Boston Terrier feels about that. I could write an entire book called the Percy/Dirk Diaries. Miraculously, there has yet to be bloodshed, for which we are very thankful.

We are settling back into Nashville and the new normal that comes with losing someone you love. Next summer I will write funny blogs about our mountain escapades. Later this year I will write about Evans’ Aunt Patricia and especially about his wonderful, amazing, much-adored mother Harriette. Theirs are lives to be celebrated, examined, and admired. We will continue to live our lives, not as planned, but as ordained. And, it will almost certainly be awkward, and hopefully fantastic.

I went to a book signing last night for my friend Margaret Renkl. Margaret and I were neighbors for fifteen years. Her oldest son and my daughter are the same age and have been friends all their lives. We had the great good fortune to live in an idyllic neighborhood where the kids really did play from yard to yard while the parents stood in the street and chatted as the streetlights came on.

Margaret has always been a gifted writer. The first time I realized how good was when I read an essay in Redbook while waiting for my mother to get her hair done. It made me cry. After I finally stopped crying I noticed the author was Margaret. Then it made me cry more because I realized I knew all the people in the heart wrenching essay. It was about how her father fixed the things in their house in Alabama. That has been at least ten years ago and I still remember that essay and being amazed that I knew a writer like Margaret.

Margaret’s first book, Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss released yesterday. It is every bit as beautiful as you would expect from Margaret. The cover and interior illustrations are done by her equally gifted brother Billy Renkl. . When I ran into her husband Haywood earlier this year, he was afraid no one would come to her book launch event because so many people are out of town in July. He need not have worried. It was the biggest event Parnassus, our local independent bookstore, has ever hosted, which is saying something because they host serious book events. The room was packed beyond capacity and the crowd cheered and applauded repeatedly. Margaret cried. I cried because I was so happy for her. I have been to too many book events to count. But this was my friend’s book. She was my friend before she wrote a book and I was beyond thrilled that everyone was as excited about it as I was. That it is beautiful and profound is almost a bonus.

Today, I began reading a different book. Mended: Restoring the Hearts of Mothers and Daughters, by Blythe Daniel and Helen McIntosh, is also written by a friend. Many years ago, Blythe worked for me as a publicist. We were both a lot younger and she was still Blythe McIntosh. I have to remind myself that her last name is Daniel, although it has been for fifteen years. I also remember meeting her mother all those years ago. We were driving back from a business meeting in Atlanta and she wanted to stop to visit her parents when we passed Dalton, Georgia. He mother was a beautiful, gracious, bubbly, older version of Blythe. I have been privileged to visit with Helen several times over the years even though Blythe and I no longer work together and she has lived in Colorado for years.

As I read Mended, I was struck by how insightful, vulnerable, and well-written it was. I forgot that it was written by a friend and was drawn into the very real wisdom and encouragement I found in its pages. I have found being the mother of an adult daughter much more challenging than at any other time in my parenting journey. I began reading it so I could send Blythe a note to thank her for the gift and instead lost several hours and highlighted passages in numerous chapters.

It is not that am surprised that my friends are good writers. It is just that before now, authors were authors and friends were friends. I know what it takes to get a book from idea to publication. The work, self-doubt, determination, effort, trust, fear, cussedness, excitement, courage, strength, luck, and will. For both these books to be so very good is the ice cream on the peach cobbler. I can’t wait to tell people to please read Late Migrations and Mended, not because they were written by my friends Margaret and Blythe, but because they are just so good. It is an embarrasment of riches.

I hope you have a chance to meet Margaret Renkl and Blythe Daniel one day. If either of them are having a book event in your area, please go. You will be glad even if it is a fire hazard and there aren’t enough chairs. But, if you can’t, please go to a bookstore and buy their books. Margaret would strongly prefer you go to an independent bookstore even if they have to order it for you. Blythe, having been in publishing for decades, is probably not as particular. Either way, you will want to meet my friends, if only in the pages of their very, very good works.

When my daughter moved home after living in New York for two years, I was thrilled and a little apprehensive. We asked her to plan to live at home initially because we figured it would take a minute for her to find a job and we wanted a free house-sitter this summer while we are in Colorado.

I have always been a relatively chill mother. I knew she had good sense. She has always been a good girl. She always did her homework. She is honest to a fault. There have been plenty of times I have encouraged her not to tell me things. She is the one who goes to pick up the friends who make bad choices. She has a great work ethic. I knew she would make the transition back to Nashville without a hitch.

We even talked about it before she moved home. I told her if I overstepped my boundaries and got in her business, that she needed to tell me. She agreed that she would. It was going to be fine.

Then she moved home and I lost my mind. Really. It was like I was possessed by the worst version of myself. “What are you doing? Where have you applied? Why don’t you get someone to look at your resume? Are you wearing that? Aren’t you going to put on some makeup? You should be networking.” And this was not for a week or two, but for a couple (or more) months. I was a nervous wreck. I wanted to kill her at some point of every day. My husband just stared at me as I meddled and picked and nagged and suggested and encouraged. “She is not you,” he said. I told him I did not want her to be me, but….

I talked to my best friends. “I have lost my mind,” I said. “Yes, you have,” they agreed. They all told me that she would be fine and I needed to let her figure it out. I wanted to, but I could not do it. She was not figuring it out. She wasn’t doing any of the things I expected.

She was not doing any of the things I expected.

I am an avid reader, and by that I mean I read a stupid number of novels. After years of reading helpful, encouraging, uplifting manuscripts, I now devour mysteries, especially historical mysteries. Over the last several weeks, I have read four or five books where a mother’s expectations for her adult daughter were central to the plot. Somehow in print, it was easy to see how controlling, selfish, and obtuse the mother was. Each mother character’s refusal to see or treat her adult daughter like an individual was so clear, so obvious. And, sadly, it took more than a few before I got the message. But, then there it was. My daughter is not me. And that is fine. That is good. That is how it should be.

Knowing I was wrong was not enough to shut me up. Seeing myself in print in story after story finally got my attention. I stopped nagging and started praying. I actually let it go in my mind and trusted her to figure it out.

She got a job offer last night. It is a great opportunity and she will be amazing in this new role. I know she would have liked to have landed a job much faster than she did, but I think God had a lesson for me and it appears I am a slow learner. As I said, God is sneaky, but He is relentless.