The Long, Hard Cry

Time has no meaning up here at the Rainbow Bridge which is my excuse for not keeping up with my blogging. I just got busy with angel training; I'm learning to give new born puppies a little angel power push into the world. I've also done my share of shade sitting under the tennis ball trees. Some of the dogs up here are crazy about those trees. They're not content, like me, to just wait for the balls to fall on their own. You can always find a few canines jumping on their hind legs, plucking yellow prizes from the low branches.

I haven't been checking up on my earth family much lately either. But I came running to the magic water recently when I heard my mom seriously sobbing like I hadn't heard her do in a very long time. She's not generally a crybaby like that. I could feel her pain all the way up here and it broke my heart. I barked for my angel brother to come along and we saw her standing in front of the Moving Wall, the replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. She was telling her friend that she didn't expect her emotions to boil up like that. She didn't stop crying until she and Dad got back home and she took a long nap.

They had seen the real Wall in Washington D.C. a few years after its dedication in 1982 and at that time they spent a long time looking up names in the book so they could find them on the wall. Mom had been pen pals with over fifty serviceman back then. Boys, really, she says. After one of those servicemen came back home they met and he affected her life in ways she still doesn't talk about to anyone.

"So many wasted lives," she kept saying in her head. "So many families touched by all those deaths." And by the ones who came home with physical and emotional scared. There was one homemade plaque placed at the end of the memorial with a name and the words "death by diaxin." It really affected Mom and Dad. Dad had a friend who fought the effects of Agent Orange for decades and died now long ago. Mom felt so badly that she didn't think to bring any flowers along to place beneath the Wall. When they visited the real Wall she brought a poem she wrote.

Tomorrow is Schnauzer Saturday and I'm hoping Mom will help Levi blog about his adventure in Senior Citizen Land but it might be Sunday. You know how old people are. One day is just like another....except on Saturdays. That's when my humans savor the farmers market. And I need to get back to keeping a closer eye on Mom. She's been a little down lately. ©

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