I should have read the book weeks ago.

I’ve read a lot this year, actually, as my children have grown into beings that act grown-up during their waking hours but need the sweet solace of mama’s arms as they fall asleep. I read them books, then I prop the flashlight beneath my chin, as I did as a child, and read myself books as they drift softly into naptime, or bedtime, or the endless twilight hours of summer that refuse to yield to darkness and sleep.

I love to read. Always have. But when there’s a deadline, I often leave it to the last minute, cramming as much Life as I can in the space before the assignment is due, knowing that I’ll pull together and finish the work, turn it in on time, hand it in hot from my old dot matrix printer (oh, sorry, that was college), and it’s only a question of how productive I can make the procrastination period: of course I can ace the assignment — but what else can I get done in addition?

And so I went about my business, conducting interviews with NASA mission managers, coaching soccer, potty training my toddler and doling out m&ms. When I stopped by the library to find the book last week, it was checked out – but another book looked interesting, (Accidentally on Purpose, by Mary Pols), so I checked it out and read it instead (diverting, but not complex). It was only when a friend offered me her copy on Thursday that I realized that time was short, that I should say yes, and that book club would actually come on Monday, as it always does.

I began to read. And then I couldn’t stop. A Three Dog Life, by Abigail Thomas, was completely absorbing, if confusing in its nonlinearity, and saddening as we readers watch her husband, hit by a car on page three, try to recover from a traumatic brain injury. The author’s comfort is her dogs.

For years, I had heard about this novel and looked forward to it, thinking that surely the dogs were sequential and integral to the story: one after another, the graduate school dog, the family dog, the dog of middle age, but that time would be there for me to read it when I got around to it. It was reading the book that reminded me that time is not always there. Time is but a framework for how we live, a way to measure what is yesterday and what is today and what can be forgotten as well as what may never come to pass. Time for the author’s husband is but a moment, a single moment, and it does not always correspond to the moment that the rest of the world is living in.

How chilling. But throughout it all, the author is comforted by her dogs: Harry, Carolina, and Rosie. Life goes on for her and the dogs as it stops completely for her husband. It is an intriguing contrast, one that remains with me after the book is done. How should one live a life, and how lucky are we that we can contemplate that?

I made it through the book in a three naptimes and a half (hours before the deadline of appetizers at the local wine bar), and held it all together just fine, unaffected, just another reader, until the book club questions in the back.

What is the coldest night you have survived? What dogs helped you through it?

Oh, Kepler.

How will I possibly hold it together during book club?

I miss my dog.

I could go on for pages, but if you’ve ever lost a dog you’ve loved, you know what the grief feels like. So I’ll say only this.

I miss my dog. He was a good dog, and he loved me fiercely until the end. He came to us in graduate school, soon after we were married, after months and years of walking dogs at the humane society, hoping to meet our new friend. He was six months old, wiggly and shaking in his cage, suffering (we would discover) from a severe separation anxiety that caused him to howl and destroy whenever we so much as went to the mailbox. But we loved him. We kept him. We trained him. We brought him with us to the graduate school so he wouldn’t have to be alone during the day. He lived under our desks, cuddled securely, as long as he was with us. We worked it out. We found the help he needed, and he was a good dog.

He loved everyone, after a while. He was loyal to his family, remembered his friends, and was always, always gentle with the children. He moved with us from the Midwest to Washington, D.C., tried the dog parks of the new city, and promptly decided he’d rather have the couch. He was beta dog to my alpha cocker/brittany spaniel mix, but gladly gave up his #2 spot to the series of foster beagles that came soon after, as we helped dog after dog after dog (35 in all!) find their place in the world and find a new home. He would nudge the newcomers to the food bowl, lead them to the door and wait for them to bound outside, spar with the big dogs, and snuggle with the old and tired mama dogs. He was our Kepler, our companion, our foot-of-the-bedwarmer.

When the babies came, he gave up his spot again, curious and protective of my first child, following him where ever he went: tall and gangly, slightly goofy, always present, never aggressive. He kept me company during seven months of pregnancy bedrest, and he let my second child pet him, carefully, gingerly, now and then. He snuggled me when I was sick from the chemo and never left my side while I recovered. He kept the couches warm. He was a good dog. An old dog. And one that I will never forget.

Rest in peace, Kepler. 15 March 1999 – 28 May 2009

This image cracks me up.

Since installing Tweetdeck, I’ve been on twitter a lot more recently.  It’s become a friendlier place, now that I can see more posts from my good friends AND drop in to chat with the 600 people in my tweetstream.  It’s a distraction, sure, but a welcome one when I’m writing for 10 hours a day, which I did over the weekend.  I haven’t had the attention span to write a post lately, but here’s what I’ve been doing, via Twitter.  It’s kind of interesting to see what the snippets add up to, over a week or two.  (And yes, I’m painfully aware that this is horribly self-indulgent.  Consider it a social experiment, or just come back tomorrow for something else, ‘k?)

• Good morning! Sneaking a little work in before the kiddos wake.
• Is there anything better than gluttonously eating blueberries out of a bucket? Blueberries you picked yourself? YUM.
• Falling asleep trying to finish this chapter. Guess it’ll have to wait until tomorrow.
• @cribchronicles I’m doing this strange balance, where I work after they’re in bed and weekends. Exhausting but rewarding. But not very sustainable.
• @meghuber I feel GREAT, thanks for asking! Am enjoying life, coaching soccer, feeling very lucky indeed. http://tinyurl.com/mq6da9 You?
• @techmama @PunditMom NBC had an interesting point this morning…Palin is at the intersection of celebrity and politics. This may not end it
• Want to see some real fireworks? Check out http://bit.ly/zONjY for fireworks that are out of this world!
• Just for the record, the only living things that thrive in a 5 gallon aquarium are snails. And maybe a pair of guppies, no more. (Am sad.)
• Why are fireflies so magical? Because they do not try to burn bright constantly, but stop to rest. We could learn from them.
• @geosteph Fabulous. We celebrated early and Daddy is watching kids all day so I can set up interviews and WRITE! All. Day!
• Why yes, I do tweet more when I’m trying to write other things. I should log off entirely today like @technosailor. But I’d miss you.
• Have we all put more time into understanding Sarah Palin’s resignation that she did?
• Hearing neighborhood dogs bark all day long, I’m startled out of complacency in life as it is, remembering how life used to be. I miss my dog.
• Leaving the park, where we always meet new friends.
• Adding a new contributor to my group blog. Which is FANTASTIC, even if it does mean there’s another #motherwithcancer.
• @canape Aw… that was so sweet of you! But I don’t need blog awards. I’m happy just being here, still talking about life after cancer.
• @Redsy @jdbranded Oh, I dunno. I can think of a dozen times my friends brought me chocolate brownies during chemo … TOTALLY helped.
  
• Now I want brownies. (Rummages through pantry for magic red box.)

Nothing earth-shattering, but I like to think it captures snippets of a life well-lived.

Happy 4th of July!

Our family celebrated yesterday with a backyard barbecue.  The kids climbed on the playset, slid down the slide together, and made up adventure games, with the oldest (seven) leading the youngest (two) across the yard and back.  They also spent a lot of time piled in the hammock like puppies, which cracked me up.  The moms and dads took turns pushing the swings and sitting in lawn chairs under the trees.  Baby Will charmed us all as he gurgled and coo’d, and walked with help from his mama.  We all had a wonderful afternoon outside, and WhyDaddy made burgers and dogs for all.

It was really nice.  And know what I enjoyed most?  The fact that although this is our annual 4th of July picnic for our mom-friends, the two-year anniversary of the one where we made up our minds to FIGHT cancer and gear up for the first chemo, scheduled for the next day, where our friends brought food, and friendship, and t-shirts that said “Team WhyMommy” that we all donned and wore for a picture and throughout the fight, that there was no talk of cancer this year.

There was no need to talk of cancer this year.

These are my friends.  They’ve been there with me.  They know the struggles I’ve been through because they’ve been through them with me.  I’ve been through tough things with them.  And now, the cancer is not a part of daily life for any of us.