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Every morning (give or take a meeting or two), Phoebe-dog and I have a ritual. The barefoot man goes off to work at around 7am (he’s running an NGO in the mornings now – www.sdr.org.za) and then Phoebe-dog and I snuggle in bed (the only time she’s allowed on the bed), she has breakfast and then lies watchfully at the bedroom door while I get dressed and made-up and stuff. Because she knows that as soon as everything and everyone is tidy and ready to face the day, we get to go out the door, down the passage (which she does literally with a Foxy hop, skip & jump), down the stairs and into the complex garden which needs a key for that mysterious green lock.

It’s her favourite favourite thing about mornings – some time to spend in the garden.

By the time we get to the gate she literally can’t contain her excitement – she raises a paw to tap the gate and gives a little whinney of excitement if it takes just a second too long for her liking and she shoots through the gate in glee as soon as it’s open wide enough. She usually rockets once around the garden, and then circles back to sniff and snuffle and check under all the shrubs, and kick some leaves and check if there are any intrepid cats nearby to engage in a game of chase. Her favourite and her best! (To quote the girl’s current favourite & best story-book,….).

At first I almost had a heart-attack everytime she chased a cat but eventually, after watching her steam-train (as the barefoot man so aptly described it) down the stairs, across the court-yard or through the garden to chase a neighbourhood cat, I realised that she is at best a tenth of their speed and the chances of her actually ever catching one are zero. She just loves the chase!  And cats are savvy, as we know, they’re not about to be caught out by a dog. How mortifying!

In fact, we once saw a large fluffy white cat deign to be chased a little way down a road in the area on one of our walks, and then obviously changed it’s mind and rounded on Phoebe-dog and sat and looked at her. She skidded to a halt just in front of the suddenly sitting cat and plopped onto her behind and stared at the cat, utterly confused. She had no idea what to do with it if it didn’t run and play chase!  She blinked slowly at the cat who sat and licked a paw, non-plussed and then turned to look at us with concern as if to say, “What on earth is this all about?!”

I used to try and get her to hurry up on our morning trips to the garden, but these days I take my cup of tea and go and sit in the beautiful early sunshine of the dappled garden and enjoy the air and watching her dash and snuffle and stand and sniff the air in utter enjoyment of the moment. She’s so much better at that than I am.

And eventually I realised that after the mad dash about , the scratch-and-wee routines, the air sniffing and – joy of joys – the fur-raising barking at the cat on the top of the wall, Phoebe-dog will eventually wend her way back to me and lie down calmly nearby, always with her tail to me so she can keep watch, and restfully wait until I’m done.

It took a while to realise, but it’s so much more pleasant than huffing and tapping and trying to get her to hurry up. We have time to sit and breathe and be, she seems to be saying to me. And eventually everything will come back to it’s place – to it’s right perspective, given time and freedom to run it’s course.

I guess many things in life are like that, really. Love certainly is.

And maybe loss is too.

A friend of ours died in the early hours of this morning. Jen was a beautiful, brilliant feisty red-head who the barefoot man has known almost all his life, and who my special mother-in-law had taken under her wing when her own mother died in her teens. Just a few weeks ago she come over from Canada to spend a month nursing Jen and being with her. Such a gift for both of them.

Jen had cancer, it was the second time round. She has left a warm, larger-than-life man with a broken heart and two 6 month-old little girls to raise; a sister who cared tirelessly for her and a gap in many peoples’ lives.

Right now very little makes sense and the sadness is overwhelming, but in time, I know, it will all circle and settle and come back into perspective. It will still be sad, but it will be ok. It will be life in all it’s comings and goings, not vindictive or fair, just life.

Last January Jen and her warm bear of a husband and my lovely mother-in-law were all smiling on the beach when the barefoot man and I got married. Jen was pregnant already. It was a happy time. This January the world will be so different. I guess it always is, really.

And as I sat in the garden and watched Phoebe-dog this morning it started to rain ever so softly through the trees and warm sunshine. So unexpected. So beautiful and sad.

It seemed appropriate.