The View from the Hermitage, Day 29

I was going to write something about last night's NBC Nightly News montage of first responders and health care people showing while Andrea Bocelli sang "Amazing Grace" a cappella. It brought tears to my eyes not to mention feelings of awe and total respect of the people putting themselves squarely in harm's way to help others. Can our debt to them ever be repaid? Doubtful.

And then this morning happened, closer to home and probably not pandemic-related. Older son went for his morning run in a rather hard rain. He came back way too soon and reported that there was a dead dog in front of one of the driveways in our subdivision. He did not recognize it but thought it looked like a couple of dogs in the subdivision. There were no signs of trauma, so it is not clear what might have killed it, though we can be pretty certain it was not another animal. The husband and older son drove back to retrieve the body. Knowing that the residents were up, they did stop at the house of one of the possible owners, so that older son could knock on their door and see if their dog were okay. It was.

While husband and son were out, I sent a y'all call email to all the neighbors describing the dog and asking if anyone knew to whom the dog belonged. It turns out that it was the other of the two families older son thought it might be. The mother owner was crying as I called to see if I should have the husband and older son bring the body to their house. She said no, her husband would come get it. And he did.

While we were out on the porch waiting for him, we saw emergency vehicles (ambulance and fire truck) arrive at the house of our next-door neighbors.  She is 80 and he is 84, so this was not a good sign. When we left the house to walk the family dog, we saw that their car was gone along with the emergency vehices. We did not take this as a good sign. The husband phoned them this afternoon and spoke with the woman. He said she sounded "real bad" so he did not press her for details. She just said that more tests would be needed; nothing was mentioned about this being covid-19 related. He told her, not for the first time, to call if they needed help or anything from town. Older son had already let them know he would be glad to bring them items as he's doing for us.

And so daily life happens in spite of the pandemic, distracting us from worry about the big picture and reminding us that family and friends, furry or human, are what matters most. If you have a pet, give it an extra scritchum. If you have elderly family members or friends, let them know you care and are there for them. We're all in this together after all.