The Bright Side of Going Dark

by Kelly Harms

she can grieve, she can take as long as she needs. She never feels that push, push, push to move on.

Buddha didn’t say that all speech should be true, kind, and necessary,”

Since I have no control over other people’s manners, and culture shifts around weight discrimination are going to take as long as culture shifts around everything else, I should just stop being bothered by that one of these days. Maybe today.

“It’s better,” I realize aloud, “if you just run at the truth full speed.” The truth, the sorrow, the grief, the joy.

I remembered, in some small corner of my brain, that a best friend who truly knows how to do the job is all you need to get through even the hardest times. My best friends were Mike and Andy, and Mom’s were Andy and me, and Azalea’s was Maggie the kitchen chicken. Those friends, three legged, two footed, and winged, got us through the hard times. When our best friends left us, we weren’t really the same.

Terribly tempted, and then changing my mind because I couldn’t stomach any more loss. Like with Dewey—someone who made my heart sing but who I kept at bay because of even the slightest chance at pain.

When you have to care for something, you have to live.”

We’re all just good people accidentally on purpose hurting ourselves.”

In the course of our lives we are going to have to learn how to outlive several dogs. I will, hopefully, outlive this one by some fifty years. But he still needs a home for the next six or seven.” She shrugs. “I will survive it somehow. Besides, this dog is smaller than a chicken, and that was my number one requirement.”