There is Nothing like Old...

There is nothing like old dogs, old friends and old photographs when you're getting up there...you know, over 50!

Old dogs are not only special companions but, great comforters!  I believe God designed dogs especially for little children and older folks.  They give us a sense of responsibility, a purpose to rise above our self-centered thoughts, a excuse to act with integrity and loyalty.  A dog gives us friendship like none other we'll ever experience.  The unspoken trust and love between our fur-buddy and us needs no rituals; no handshakes, special incantations or blood vows.  It is a union of mind and heart that is spiritual.  Dogs are always overjoyed to be with us even when we can't stand ourselves.  They medicate us when we're sick or just lonely in soul.  They soften hardened hearts, add sunshine to a gloomy personality and warm cold feet.  Most of all our beloved dogs...

teach us how to graciously suffer loss.

Old friends are like wearing worn slippers; nothing is more comfy or cozy.  Even when you don't speak or see each other for weeks, months or sometimes, years, you can pick up as if it were yesterday.  There is a shared history that carries with it all the dramas, big and small.  The laughter, the inside jokes, the collective battlefields of sorrow, divorce or loss.  You impart parental wisdom, disclose closely guarded secrets and reveal deepest fears.  Your mutual transgressions and shared mercies lift each other up when the wings of fate fail one of you. An old friendship offers the mortar of kindness, discretion, forgiveness and insight that cements time and distance forever.  Most of all our treasured friends...

teach us how to grow old gratefully.

Old photographs capture a busy life in a moment, freezing forever, not only an image, but the experience.  There is nothing like being caught in a candid flash looking your worst, doing something ridiculous or best of all, oblivious to the snapshot.  You'll wonder many years later, what was going on in your life in that immortalized second?  Were you happy, angry, lonely...  Perhaps clues in facial or body language may give you insight.  Old photographs enrapture you all over again in recollections of past holidays, vacations, special events and thrill us to what once might have seemed run of the mill.  Bubbling streams of emotions stream down our faces as these cherished, static flashes seamlessly, knit together a lifetime.  Most of all our priceless photographs...

teach us how to value the moments.

Old dogs, old friends, old photographs.  These all reflect a life...and I pray...a life well lived!