No Love for Snow

Bailey has always loved snow. Change that: Bailey has always LOVED snow. Still not right: Bailey has always LOVED snow!!! With each new snow, her eyes would widen first with amazement, then with amusement, and then pure joy. Doggy ecstasy. Doggy joy. Doggy love.

January 26, 2013

I was overwhelmed with happiness last January, during Bailey’s first last-four-weeks, when she was able to see snow again. And as the first flake melted on her nose, she was immediately transformed into a puppy—a puppy freed of any problems with cancer, arrhythmia or arthritis, if only for a short time. She joined the falling crystals in a dance of pure joy. And, as she always did, she savored the experience to the fullest—romping in it, rolling in it, tasting it and, via wildly abandoned but fully intended convulsions, sharing its wet joy with all nearby.

This morning, an early storm provided the opportunity to experience such joy again. But today's snow brought Bailey no joy.  Today, there was no love for snow. It was not the wondrous source of amazement or amusement or joy that it had always been. It was an annoyance. It was just wet and slippery and cold. Nothing more. During one of the precious periods when she is as present and alert as she can be, Bailey took no enjoyment from snow. Its power to transform her had vanished. The happiness around it was missing. The love for snow, lost.