Old Dogs

"Love transforms the value of the creature loved as utterly as the sunrise transforms Mont Blanc from a corpse-like gray to a rosy enchantment.” -William James (Varieties of Religious Experience)

Last weekend, watching our great-grand kids at the play park,
a boy, who announced that he was eight, asked me,
“Do you like being a dad? “Yes,” I said.
How many kids do you have? “Five,” I said.
“My dad likes being a dad,” he said, then added, 
“he told me that when I was born, he was so happy 
because I made him a dad!”

This weekend, again watching our great-grand kids at the play park,
we met Nicole, who is three, and fit nicely with our great-grand kids,
who are four and two. Nicole loves to laugh, as does her mom,
who watched from the sidelines while caring for a very old dog.
Later, as we were leaving, Nicole ran up to me and said,
“I love you.”

Sometimes, the world shimmers and shines, and God appears,
everywhere,
ready to transform old dogs like me.

---