“What freezings I have felt, what dark days seen,
What old December’s bareness everywhere!”  William Shakespeare

This morning I realized what my poor dog has been going through.  As I took him outside for his morning ritual, he began to notice that he could walk on top of the snow instead of sinking deeply into it as has been the case for the last few weeks. Because of this, he’s not been himself.  I’m sure the achiness of winter and the fact that he soon will be twelve may have something to do with it too.

This dog has a nose for cats and we have a huge assortment of feral cats in our neighborhood who love to taunt him.  Being unable to run through the yard like he used to, has gotten him out of shape, depressed, sick of winter and wanting to sleep.  I know how he feels . It’s been a long time since we’ve seen grass.  The past couple days he’s rallied with the slow melt of our winter wonderland.  He’s begun to venture to places in the yard that he had not been able to before.

I was feeling good that he was feeling good, so I let him “run” free of the leash for a while.  Then he went into areas he should not have been.  He sank deeply into the snow and try as he might, he couldn’t pull himself out. So I trudged through the snow to rescue him.  My body weighs a great deal more than his and it quickly sank down about a foot.  That’s about one fifth of my height so I was basically up to my thighs in icy snow and couldn’t move.  I struggleed to get free and when I did  I fell clumsily to my knees as the dog escaped from our yard.  I couldn’t get myself upright.

I thought how nice it would be if I had one of those “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” life alerts.  There were a few neighbors getting into their cars and off to work, but they didn’t notice me.  I thought I might be out there for the rest of my life.  I felt like Tom Hanks in “The Money Pit,” when he fell through the floor and got stuck there for hours.

At last I was able to push myself up.  By this time I was having difficulty breathing.   My pulse must’ve been 150, because my heart was pounding.  The dog was nowhere to be seen.  I practically crawled into the house to get to my husband so he could go find him.

The dog was rescued.  He hadn’t gone far.  In fact, he wasn’t moving too fast either.  I remained inside trying to catch my breath and hoping I didn’t break anything.  I’m fine.  Just a little late getting started.  The whole incident brought me to the truth that I am getting old, like my dog.  We don’t move like we used to.  We get depressed with winters that never end.  We think we can do the same things we did when we were younger, but God always proves to us that we aren’t.