True confession: I love football. Actually, just about any sport will do, and yes, I love watching the Super Bowl. I'm not much for parties because I really like to pay attention to the game (and the commercials!), but this year, my heart just isn't in it. I'm in New Haven, and watching with Tim is so much more fun than watching alone. I'm also here with Boudreau who is having another ACL surgery tomorrow. You may recall that, at this time last year, he had the right knee repaired. Now it's his left. This is such a brutal and long recovery, and I just hate to put him through this again.
The really odd thing, though, is that, once again, this is happening around the anniversary of Seth's death. It will be three years on Thursday (February 9th), and in some bizarre kind of way, Bou has needed intense attention at this time for the second year. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but his is the dog, after all, who would be greeted with a gleeful "Brother!!!" every time Seth walked in the door. So when Boudreau needs extra love and attention, is in pain or recovering, there's a very close connection with Seth in my mind. Poor boy. He's bears an awful lot of emotional freight for me. I've often wondered if he has any sense of Seth's absence. For me, caring for Bou certainly gives me a sense of closeness in remembering my son. So I'll see Boudreau through this recovery, unable to imagine what I'll do with myself when the time comes that he can't be nursed back to health.
After I drop him off with the surgeon tomorrow, I'll head out to the Berkeley Middler Retreat at Incarnation Center in Ivoryton, CT. I'm so looking forward to some quiet time, and Bou will be in good hands until I pick him up on Wednesday. There are so many emotions swirling around this time of year, it's really quite serendipitous that Reading Week arrives just in time. I can't say that I'll be getting much reading done for school, but I will have time to just be. And that is enough.
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