New

New

Christmas is supposed to be about new. There's nothing like a new baby to make you think about the future.

But this year I'm comfortable talking about endings. My father died a little over a year ago and I've spent the year mourning him and going through what seemed like an endless amount of work to tidy up his estate. And now that the path ahead has been cleared, so to speak, my wife and I have spent some time tidying up our own lives. We've set up a trust with a lawyer and added a few documents and tips to the “I'm Dead!” folder in my filing cabinet. In addition, this Christmas season marks the end of what I'm calling my public life. I'm done with my career as a county commissioner, and I've already turned down three offers to be on other boards and committees. And that's okay...something I've noticed over the past few years is a certain burgeoning curmudgeonly edge to my attitude. I've never seen meetings as anything other than a necessary evil, but now I'm more willing to see them as an evil, period. You don't really want one of the people in a meeting to be thinking only of how to get out of it.

Endings are okay, endings are an important part of life but spending too much time thinking about what's ending isn't healthy.

And that's why I'm grateful to Frances.

Frances is our giant, elderly Newfoundland. This time of year, she likes to sleep in our porch. I'm puzzled as to why. She has fur like a musk ox and if she can't come in the house, she'll lay down on the cement pad outside our house and let the snow pile unmelted onto her back. In fact, sometimes if she’s sleeping in the porch, she'll get too warm. Previously when that happened, she'd howl until someone couldn't take it anymore. I'd get up, let her out, maybe cussing just a bit. Frances would go outside, gulp a few mouthfuls of snow to cool down, and then flop down on the frozen ground, ignoring the perfectly fine dog bed in her kennel in the garage.

That's what she used to do. But now she's figured out how to open the door herself.

I discovered this new skill one morning when I got up and the door was open, the porch was at about -5 and Frances had already left to start her morning chores. I closed the door, feeling an abundance of guilt, because my wife was storing a few plants in the porch, some she'd brought in from outside because they couldn't withstand winter weather. Apparently, a fern can handle a 40-degree porch, but not one that had a –5 wind howling through an open door. By the time I got up the leaves had already started to turn brown. I was contrite and vowed to make sure that from here on out the door was firmly latched.

And I did.

The next morning the door was open again and the dog was gone.

This time of year, when everything is cold and hard, when many of the animals, not to mention people, have made their way to gentler places, it can start to feel like there are no more beginnings in the world, only endings.

But then an old dog shows you a new trick and everything old is new again.

Copyright 2024 Brent Olson