Beauty at the end

I just watched a video about Baxter, a NINETEEN and a half year old therapy dog that still visits patients in hospice. He is so old he cannot even walk. His precious owner has to lift him and lay him beside those that are dying, but it is miraculous what occurs. I can't even hardly see the screen to type right now, I am crying so hard.

When I watched the video, I knew I would cry before really even starting it. I am such an animal lover, and I think our elderly are some of the most beautiful people in the world. So fragile and helpless, yet wisdom etched into their every wrinkle. Even if their minds have slipped away as both of my grandmas did near the end, the wisdom of living a long journey is evident in every crevass and deep crease of their face. So you put the two together and I am destined to cry.

But it was more than that. I watched this and just felt like I was witnessing grace pouring out through two of the most unlikely sources. Both Baxter, the dog, and those he visited were completely unable to do much at all, yet grace oozed from their encounters. They are both at the end of their lives and yet, they still have enough strength to show love. How beautiful! How humbling!

As I watched Baxter lay his head down on the bed of the dying woman and see her slowly reach up to stroke his head, I simply saw Jesus. I realized that until our very last breath, if we live for Him, we truly have ability to love. I know dogs don't have souls, but I believe they are planted in our paths to demonstrate to us unconditional love, and Baxter reaffirmed that for me today as I watched that video.

You see, you can kick a dog and he may cower, but he will return to you, in full forgiveness of what you have done... if you will just allow him back. You can abandon him and he will do whatever he can to find his way back to you. You can ignore him for days and days and days, and yet his tail will wag for a simple touch. He is loyal, faithful, and his eyes are a constant portrayal of the love he has for you. And how like God that is. We can kick him out, ignore him for weeks, months, years, or even leave him altogether, but through Jesus, He does all He can to help us reunite with Him and when we do, His love is loyal and faithful as if we have never left Him for a moment. I know dogs don't have souls, but they are certainly straight out of Heaven for ours.

And the elderly are as well. Though the end of their lives seem so cruel and unfair, the purpose in their lives has not ended. We just have to be willing to look for it. Aging changes them, no doubt. Some are grouchy. Some are bossy. Some are confused. Some are broken in their mind. But all of them have this presence about them, if they have Jesus, that allows love to pour out in the most unexpected ways, if we just watch for it.

I remember sitting with my grandmother in the nursing home, time and again. She got really bad in her Altzheimer's just a few months after Eathan fell and had to moved into a unit in Amarillo. When Eathan was out of ICU for brief periods, I would go to the nursing home and Todd would sit just outside with Eathan so that if something happened I could be right back with him, and I would go sit with my grandmother. She didn't know my name anymore. She couldn't say much at all, but always, there was a connection that no memory loss could deny us. I would sit with her, not saying a word, and feel like therapy to my hurting heart over my terminally ill child was taking place. She had no earthly awareness of his ilness. But somehow, sitting with her was healing for my broken-ness. One of the first nights I was with her, a couple came with their guitars to sing to them. We were sitting and enjoying the song. My grandmother never could carry a tune to save her life, but she hummed and whistle hummed almost constantly. This day was no different.

But then a miracle happened. They began to sing the old gospel song, "In the Sweet By and By." My grandmother, who couldn't speak a full sentence intelligibly by this point, began to sing, word for word the entire chorus of this song. I remember holding her hand and bawling like a baby, unable to control myself. My grandmother, in her loss of ability to even hardly know who I was, was able to remind me that all would be okay... IN THE SWEET BY AND BY because our Lord would meet us there one day! It is one of my most cherished moments in my life.

Watching Baxter be laid up there to look into the eyes of this dying woman, I saw what I experienced with my grandmother and it opened the floodgates... and my need to write. I was reminded of my grandmother and I was reminded of my sweet Hope, Eathan's dog who ministered to him in his dying days.

Eathan was so very ill. He could no longer get on the ground and play. He wasn't well enough to ride the donkey that we had gotten for him that he loved so very much. So we got him a miniature black Schnauzer and named her HOPE because we knew either way Eathan's life went from illnes, we all had HOPE. It was amazing what happened. She was six week old and instantly knew her job was him. She slept curled up around his little helmet that protected his massively bleeding head. If he was asleep, she was curled up by his head, unless we moved her because of one reason or another. And she went with us to every urgent rush to the hospital, where in the last days because every 7 to 10 hours, he would go into shock because the blood loss was so much. We would load him in the car and before we could get in ourselves, she was in the car, by HER Eathan, standing guard. She never went through the puppy stage of biting, chewing up things, or anything. She just took care of him.

I learned in the ICU, instead of watching the scary monitors, to watch Hope. She would stand at attention, at Eathan's feet, while the transfusions were pushed in trying to pull him back to us once more. She never laid down until he was out of danger. It was a remarkable thing to watch. She loved him and was in full salute of our little hero until his little body was relaxing and the shock was subsiding. When Hope curled up at Eathan's feet where she slept in the hospital (they were so, so good to us to allow him to have his puppy in his dying days) then and only then did my heart relax and allow me to breath a little more normally, until the next event would come in just a few short hours. She was totally committed to him and him alone. She didn't watch monitors or depend on man to know how he was. She was intuned to him.

Remarkably, and of which I have no explanation, Hope did not attend the final car ride where Eathan met Jesus. The only explanation I can think of is that she would have died of heartbreak and God knew I would need her in Eathan's absence so he managed to keep her from jumping in that night. It was the only night she didn't go. It had to be God. And she grieved as badly as we did. She wouldn't enter our bedroom where we had his bed and he slept all those months he was sick, when he was able to be home. She would stop at the bedroom door when I went in and would wait at the door until I came back out. This went on for weeks. She knew he was gone and just like me, facing his bed and all that was him, was just too much.

So when I watched this video, everything swirled so very quickly in those three and half minutes it played. I remembered and I was compelled to write... immediately... in order to share the nugget of this very day.

The nugget of today is we have the opportunity every breath we take, to ooze out love. We have no excuse not to. If a dog can do it without even a soul, or a precious elderly person can do it with hardly even a breath left, we simply have no excuse. Life is so unfair and many hard, harsh, painful events hit us from every direction. But good things do too and if we just take our eyes off the pain and look to the beauty, we will be what this video demonstrates. We will be God's grace in someone's life just when they need it.

I have been hurt in life by people. I have been wounded to the core by people at times. I have held on to that hurt and it has been a reason to be guarded and even defensive. But I was reminded yet again today, of unconditional love and that no matter what has happened to hurt me, I simply have to continue to ooze love. I don't have to be a doormat. I don't have to allow anyone to hurt me over and over again. I have a brain and God wants me to use it. But the oozing part... the Jesus coming out in grace from ME part... I simply must allow it.

I love you.... I LOVE YOU! Thank you for reading! I LOVE YOU!

Robin