Bittersweet, A Connection

Connections.  I was talking to Mike Fisher about them a couple weeks back, about how one thing that happens to you seems to eventually bounce into something else with which you are concerned, just when you least expect it.  I have been wanting to write about a “for example” of this connection phenomenon for a couple weeks and have finally gotten up the wherewithal to do so.  (“Wherewithal” is a term I picked because it doesn’t sound as wimpy as “courage.”)

You may recall that our labrador Lucy died unexpectedly at the end of March.  I still miss her and think of her multiple times each day.  August 15th would have been her 9th birthday, and I got a little sadder as the date approached.  A bunch of other family concerns were bothering us, too, and I wished Linda and I could relax and put some of those concerns aside.  What we needed was to re-experience “Beaufort TIme,” a term I coined for us three years ago when we spent a carefree month in Beaufort, South Carolina. But I had forgotten about that idyllic term and state of mind.

Then came the connection.  The weekend before Lucy’s birthday, USA TODAY did a feature story on Beaufort.  We read it and remembered the peace of “Beaufort Time.”  But the thing is Lucy had loved Beaufort, too.  The house on the river where we stayed was equipped with a labrador-sized dog door through which Lucy could crash to go out to the fenced-in riverside deck.  The walking was good there, too.  Probably her favorite part of Beaufort life was swimming in the Beaufort River just a mile or so from our house.

I think the definition of this connection is the word “bittersweet.”  Linda and I both agree that we don’t know if it would be as much fun to go back to Beaufort without our girl.  Still, recalling the relaxed fun we had there is really special.  So we are faced with a connection, our puppy and our place, which is very “sweet” but yet somehow “bitter.”

I wish I could say that this connection has taught me something, but I can’t think of anything. . .except maybe that the key word in “Beaufort Time” is “Time.”  Maybe at this time next year, a month in Beaufort will seem like just the thing.  I can’t imagine that it will, but. . .maybe.