Lucky

There is just something wrong about this.

Putting a U.S. Postal Service collar on your dog or taking it to the vet in a mailbox-shaped carrier just seems wrong.

It's like capitulating to the enemy, or something.

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A GOOD DOG STORY

Mary and her husband Jim had a dog named Lucky. Lucky was a real character. Whenever Jim and Mary had company come over for a weekend visit, they would have to warn their friends not to leave their luggage open because Lucky would help himself to whatever struck his fancy.

Inevitably, one of their guests would forget and something would turn up missing. Mary or Jim would trudge down to Lucky's box in the basement and there the "treasure" would be, amid all of Lucky's other favorite toys. Lucky always stashed his toys in his box and he was very particular that they stay in the box.

Now, in the course of life going on, Mary discovered that she had breast cancer. Something inside told her she was going to die of the disease. In fact, she became certain that it was fatal.

Mary scheduled a double mastectomy, fear riding her shoulders. The night before she was to go into the hospital, she cuddled up with Lucky, and a thought struck her. "What would happen to Lucky?" Although the three-year old dog got along with Jim all right, he was definitely Mary's dog, through and through. "If I die, Lucky will feel abandoned," Mary thought. "He won't understand that I didn't want to leave him." The thought made her sadder than contemplating her own death.

The surgery turned out to be harder on Mary than her doctors had anticipated and she remained hospitalized for over two weeks. Jim took Lucky on his evening walk faithfully, but the little dog's head just drooped, and he was constantly whining and miserable.

Finally the day came for Mary to leave the hospital. When she arrived home, she was so tired she couldn't even make it up the stairs to her bedroom. Jim made his wife comfortable on the couch and left her there to nap. Lucky stood watching Mary but refused to come to her when she called him. This, of course, made Mary very sad, but she was soon overcome by sleep and she dozed.

When Mary woke up, she had trouble for a moment understanding what was wrong. She couldn't seem to move her head and her body felt hot and heavy. Panic soon gave way to laughter, however, when she realized what had happened. She was covered - literally blanketed - with every treasure Lucky owned!

While she had slept, the sorrowing dog had made trip after trip to the basement, bringing his beloved mistress all the things in life he treasured so much.

He had covered her with his love.

Mary forgot about dying. Instead, she and Lucky began living again, walking further and further together every day. It's been 12 years since Mary's surgery and she remains cancer-free.

Lucky? He still steals "treasures" and stashes them in his toy box in the basement.

But Mary remains his greatest treasure.

[sent by list member Dianne F.; some light editing by Mark Raymond]

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Wow. That story is almost enough to make me go out and get a dog. Thanks, Dianne.

Thanks for all your notes of concern and prayers regarding our plumbing and heating situation. God was certainly looking out for us. He must have woken us up quickly so that we caught the leak before it had go on too long. Once we dried out the furnace electronics and rebooted the system twice, everything still worked! Mind you, that was one plumber and two furnace technician visits later ... but those costs are being taken care of by a good friend.

Meanwhile, my wife leaves in the morning for her semi-annual trip to help her mother transport her stroke-impaired step-father down to Florida for the winter. She'll be gone until Thursday, with yours truly left alone with the kids. Pray for us! Keep praying for us!

And I'll see you on Monday.

Mark

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WEB SITE of the WEEK: Ever thought you had a better idea for a movie or a television show than the drivel you just saw? Well, at http://www.moviepitch.com/, you can pitch ideas directly to Hollywood Producer Robert Kosberg. You have to spend $25 to purchase his CD, which contains his seminar information training you how to do this and registers you as a member of his idea team, however. And you are essentially trusting his honesty and integrity because the contract you sign essentially gives him unlimited control of your idea. What you get - if everything works right - is the fee a Hollywood studio pays for the idea. Kosberg makes his money as a producer of the film/show. That fee runs anywhere from $5,000 to $50,000, according to the website.

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Mark's Musings is - wait for it - still a Habeas-certified spam free mailer. Subscribe, view past issues in the Archives, and click all you want at my web site. To contact me and sooner or later get a reply, click here. To enjoy a marvelously mild Native American Summer, you should have come to visit Michigan when I originally wrote this last week. Now it's stinkin' cold and rainy. Honestly, Michigan weather lasts about as long as a good yawn. You can forward or reprint "Mark's Musings" freely but please keep the credits attached. In this I depend upon *your* honesty and integrity. Original material and commentary © 2008 by Mark Raymond. I update this blog with a copy of this post daily and occasionally toss in bonus material on the weekends. Look for the label that says "Weekend" and you can bring them all up with one click. My personal mission statement and my license plate are still John 3:30. That's one bad hat, Harry.

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WORDS for YOUR WEEKEND: "Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?" (Woody Allen)