Thursday, February 23, 2017

The Time Between the Walks by Pocket


Peace, quiet, and normalcy that is all I ask, but those simple desires elude me in a world that is increasingly chaotic.
We had gone weeks without a proper walk.  Then, on a stunningly beautiful Wednesday, we got a nice walk.  I was looking forward to many more.
Then the skies grew dark, the air chilled, by morning a hard, cold, rain fell, which turned to snow.  Midway through the storm, Daddy trekked out to shovel it, but he was overmatched by the weight of the snow and length of the driveway.  Luckily, our neighbor across the street owns a plow.  Daddy offered to pay the neighbor to plow the driveway, but the man insisted on doing it for free.  A rare good break, and a tremendous act of friendship.
On Sunday, when Daddy was working, it snowed some more.  It took him twice as long to get home.  This was very worrisome.  He shoveled the wet snow three more times.  This was worrisome as well.
Every inch of green was buried under more than a foot of snow.  The driveways and walkways were frozen.  There was nary a place to poop or pee.  The wind howled and nipped at our faces.  We tried to find a place to quickly pee that wouldn’t immediately freeze trapping us on the ground.  Walking was impossible.
On a Monday night, Daddy started coughing.  It began slowly, but after a couple of days, he was whoomping and woofing, wheezing and wobbling, gagging and hacking.  And spraying.  His coughs twisted his body into strange positions, shook the bed, or chair, where he sat, and was thundering.
This went on for days.  It was very disheartening.  I couldn’t go outside because of the snow and ice; I couldn’t relax inside because of the hacking and coughing.  My sleep kept getting interrupted by Daddy’s rushing out of bed to relieve his congestion.
By the weekend the snow, and the congestion were melting.  When River and I went out, we found expanding green space to do our business.  We no longer stood trembling on icy paws.  
On Monday the temperature warmed into the 50’s.  Daddy put us on our leashes, and we walked for the first time in two weeks.  There were still snowbanks, and intermittent hacking coughs, but the sun was shining brighter, and I could see spring slowly rising in the East.
And it smelled like hope.

9 comments:

  1. When winter comes, can spring be far behind?

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  2. I think that spring is on the way. I'm so glad that your dad is feeling a bit better, and doesn't have to shovel extremely heavy snow anymore. That's tough work.

    What a sweet ending to your story. I'm so glad that you got out for that walk!

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  3. Wow! I sure hope your Dad feels better soon. After some beautiful Spring weather, we're waiting for that cold front to move in from the west. It's pouring rain today.

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  4. Poor Dad - we hope he takes good car of that cold all the way to the end so it is booted out for good. Now do tell where do you live that you get all that snow and we get NONE??? Actually we saw a few flakes this morning, but they were terribly fleeting:(

    Woos - Lightning and Misty

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  5. We have experienced the same thing here including our pawrents being sick. It smelled like hope here and then the smell froze under more snow. But mom is hopeful that it won't take long to melt.

    Your Pals,

    Murphy & Stanley

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  6. Two weeks without a walk....you must have had loads of pee-mail to catch up on. We hope that snow is gone for the season AND your dad is better.

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  7. We had just gotten all of our yard back and then the snow started again yesterday and we have high drifts everywhere
    spring can't get here soon enough
    hugs
    Mr Bailey, Hazel & Mabel

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