Finding The Way

 Poor Tricky.

Our family includes two miniature dachshunds. The elder statesdog is Tricky, short (naturally) for Dietrich Bonhoeffer. We adopted him from the Watauga Humane Society in the fall of 2011. The shelter employees told us that they estimated that he was eight years old, which means that he is now seventeen. That is pretty old in dog years.

Tricky's eyes are both clouded over, and his hearing isn't what it once was. He is functionally blind. When we moved house thirteen months ago, it took him a little while to learn his way around the new home. He was delighted to discover that, like the old house, the new house has a pathway loop, which means he could travel in circles. The center comprises a utility closet and bathroom. From the front entrance, he can go right into the living room, then left into the kitchen, and straight back into the master bedroom or left and left again to go through the hall and back into the foyer.

We naively hoped that we would not have to move house ever again. Fortunately, the hubs is of a more practical bent, and he saved the boxes. COVID ate my job. I've been serving as a chaplain for a senior-living community, a campus that includes independent living, assisted living and skilled care. But since March, safety concerns have limited me to one building. At the same time, the organization is bleeding money, spending unholy amounts on personal protective equipment and on state-mandated weekly COVID tests. My job was being cut back to two days a week, no benefits.

I was not looking forward to finding a job in the current climate, but actually secured one in approximately eight weeks.

Beginning January 11, I will be serving as a hospice chaplain - in Newport News, Virginia.

Yep. We're moving again.

Which is confusing the heck out of Tricky. As he wanders the familiar rooms, navigating by muscle memory and scent, he keeps coming up against barriers. Stacks of boxes form a wall everywhere he tries to turn. He is uncomplaining, but I have a feeling that if he could talk, he would be voicing his concerns.

In less than a week, we will be packing the U Haul. We are much too old to pull that move-ourselves stunt, but until the house sells, we will be carrying the mortgage on the house as well as rent. We've taken a six-month lease, optimistic that the house will sell and we will be able to find a new place.

Poor Tricky. It's bad enough now - but in a week he will have to accustom himself to a completely new place. New layout, new sounds, new smells. But he will adapt, because the new place will also have all his favorite humans. 

And it will mean a lot to have the dogs with us, the anchor of familiarity as we navigate a whole new city, new job, new church, new everything. 

Wouldn't it be nice if, as everything changed around us, we could hold to the anchor of those we love? Hang in there, Tricky.