In which a light is extinguished

I'm instituting a new program, one I've felt was necessary for a while, but which seems especially important today. This program is called the Soul Exchange, and it capitalizes on discrepancies between life expectancy and the will to live. It works like this: Anyone with a strong spirit and a kind heart, but whose physical body isn't holding up its end of the bargain, can exchange his body with a sour grouch with no will to live, who's in great (or at least better) shape.

It's too late to use the program to trade in my late grandfather, a sour man whose main goal in life was to bitterly resent and hate every person or entity that crossed his path, but whose body remained in good working order for 77 years. He was a man of irremediable hatred, whose favorite term of endearment was "Stupie," short for stupid, and whom I once heard express, at the dinner table, on Thanksgiving no less, his opinion that Ralph Nader should have been "shot at birth." I was about nine years old at the time, but his statement has stuck with me, for some reason.

I'm instituting the program today, which is still too late to help my friend Lucy, who lost her wonderful dog yesterday. His name was Fox, and here is his picture, which is not the most flattering, but which will give you an idea of his general shape:

His spirit was strong, but his body wasn't up to the task, and it is a terrible thing to be the one to recognize and then act on that knowledge. Because where does that spirit go? If the lamp is still burning, who wants to take a hammer to it? And yes, I know that extinguishing the light is necessary at times, but it doesn't make the task any easier. In this case, I'm what you might term an interested bystander--Fox was one of my dogsitting charges. I'm not involved in the particulars, but it stings just the same.



Star of the day. . .Fox
posted @ 10:57 a.m. on November 02, 2005 before | after

|

She lay awake all night,

zzzzzzzzzzz......