If anything
happens to me—and it won’t, I promise—but if anything happens to me, please
take gentle loving care of Maya.
Let her stay in whatever safe place she finds, even if she stays there for hours. She will love that. Just curling up. Safe.
Take her for a walk every single day, even if it rains a little. (She has a raincoat.) She will hate that. The world, after all, is a very scary place.
But if you can, walk her before the first rays of the sun bring with them activity and noise and human interaction. Walk in the stillness of almost-dawn. She will love that.
It’s a chore, I know, but please clip her little nails once a month. If you’re slow and gentle, she will let you. She will hate every minute of it. But she will let you.
Once a week—or maybe twice, if you don’t mind—please give her two small pieces of cheese. Or part of your fried egg. (No pepper, please.) She will love this.
Once a year—even though she’s almost always inside and never exposed and no one will ever come looking to see if she’s had her rabies shots—please take her to a soft-spoken, slow-moving vet to get her vaccinations. She will hate being touched by a stranger, just as most of us do.
On occasion, if you can, please take her out to the hills for her walk. Use the long lead so she can enjoy the sensation of running free, even though you will be on the other end, hurrying to keep up as she trots along the trail with wild abandon, unfazed by the scent of coyotes or bobcats. She will love this.
If visitors or repair persons must come, please shut her away in her safe place, preferably behind a closed door, preferably with a large, soft blanket to tunnel under, preferably with Charlie, her favorite stuffie. She will hate the intrusion, and maybe she’ll be reluctant to eat her dinner for many hours afterward. But I promise by the next morning, she’ll be okay again. If she ever misses breakfast, you will know that something is terribly wrong.
At night, before she goes to sleep, please rub behind her ears and massage her back and stroke her beautiful face and head. She will lie still, and you will never see evidence that she loves this, but she does love this. You will never see evidence that she loves you. But she does. Trust me. If you feed her treats and keep her safe, she will love you, even if you do nothing else for her.
And, if you’ll indulge me, I have just one more request for her if something should happen to me. Which it won’t. I promise. But if somehow it did…. Please keep her with her best friend, Maudie. Because as humans, we can keep her safe and keep her healthy, and she will love that. But for her to be truly joyful in the way only dogs can be, she will need her bestie by her side to let her know that she never has to face the scary world alone again.
And isn't that what we all need, really? After we are fed and safe? A friend to assure us that we will never have to face the scary stuff alone. We are fortunate, we are blessed, we are downright joyful as only humans can be, when we have a bestie like that.
