Beyond the Black and Little Bear

Isaac Garvin | February 05, 2021 | Shvil HaBaruch, The Blessed Path

Been down this week with a bad back. I’m sure many of you know exactly what I mean. Of course it came right during Purim, that is typical. So I’ve been struggling with morale and those types of issues. Got a little head-cold on top of it and kind of relegated myself to the bedroom for the day on Tuesday. In the late morning Rebekah suggested I go outside for some fresh air and sunshine. It has turned warm this week. Almost feels like Spring. The snow is already gone from the yard and the grass is beginning to dry out. All winter long we have kept a path clear across our deck from the back door to the steps that lead across the yard towards the garage. Even the pile of snow left from all that shoveling has finally vanished. During the winter we expend a lot of energy dealing with snow, but it doesn’t actually go away. We just move it from one place to another. Spring doesn’t get rid of the snow by moving it, but by transforming it back to what it once was.

I situated myself on a step with the sun to my back and settled in to watch our dog Buddy playing with his toys. He was tearing around the yard with a piece of knotted rope. When he gave it a vicious shake it made me think of Kayrah, the little white dog we lost last Summer. She used to do that. She would have liked Spring. I would have liked to see Spring on her. It isn’t fair that she’s not here.

We all welcome the hope for new life that is awakened in us during this time of the year. It is a beautiful thing. But when the snow melts off we are also confronted with the reality that not everything has survived the winter. The realization of all that has been lost sometimes hits pretty hard. I haven’t grieved for Kayrah this much since the season in which we lost her. It was good to cry a little, her memory deserves it, but I have a cold and crying doesn’t help.

I have a tendency to go towards sadness, to focus on the pain. These are my doldrums and sometimes it’s hard for a person to fill their own sails. But my story for today doesn’t end with a ship stranded in slack water with a broken beam and limp rigging. Fortunately I do not sail alone and Rebekah has a knack for being able to find the wind.

Rebekah took advantage of the lovely weather and spent the afternoon in a neighboring town doing a few errands and chasing down a few things she knew the family needed. In the early evening I watched from our edroom window as she drove up in our little car and parked in front of the house. She came around to the passenger side and opened the door to grab something. I could tell she had a pretty full load in the car and I expected her to come up the walk with her arms full of the regular stuff: groceries, filtered water, something from the second-hand store. But when she slowly turned around and headed for the house she had only one thing in her arms.

It was white and fluffy and fit easily within her hands as she held its little face up next to her own. Two little black eyes and an even smaller black nose were all I could see at first, then two little button ears. I threw the window open. “What do you have?” I called out. Rebekah just smiled and held her little treasure. “Oh my goodness. He is so cute!” I couldn’t stop smiling and staring at Rebekah and her new puppy. She took her time coming up the walk, just savoring the moment and inviting me into the moment with her. Finally I tore myself away from the window and went around so I could open the door for Rebekah and meet the new life that came into our house today.

Our life has been abruptly disrupted...in a good way. We find ourselves just sitting on the floor, watching the “baby.” We have to go outside more frequently now to take him potty or to play with him and help him climb the stairs. And I am still surprised sometimes to see Rebekah come around the corner holding a “Little Bear” close to her face. As I write this, Rebekah is sitting at the table across from me with Little Bear tucked inside her overshirt. Just his head and his paws are sticking out and he is trying to nibble on her fingers or her pen or anything else that comes in reach. Every so often he gazes up at her. He has chosen her. He is happy between her paws. And that makes me happy. I am happy.

Sometimes the black flag of death hangs so close in front of our eyes that it is all we can see. The evidence for the supremacy of death can seem pretty overwhelming as our souls surrender to the seeming frailty of our own existence. We begin to resign ourselves to impermanence...evanescence. But then the slightest breath of a breeze causes the flag too flutter, the despondent sailor catches sight of a shorebird overhead, and the sight of something as shocking as a bird, or a puppy, breaks the spell and instantly restores our heart to its normal rhythm—life. Beyond the black all is blue and white. Beauty, sunlight, water, sky. And we remember. Death is temporary; life is eternal. And life has chosen us.

Blessed be the journey,

Isaac