Blind Hope: An Unwanted Dog & the Woman She Rescued (15 page)

Laurie looked for the least disruptive path out of the barn. Bending low, she led Kendal with one hand and Mia with the other. In her urgency, Kendal pulled Laurie so fast that Mia couldn’t step around the obstacles she couldn’t see. Laurie lost her grip on Mia’s collar in the rush to the door and quickly
backtracked to retrieve her sightless friend. Not wishing to disturb others more than she already had, Laurie chose not to verbally guide her dog. Instead, she used the only thing she could think of: she snapped her fingers by Mia’s head. When her dog turned toward the sound, Laurie rubbed Mia’s brow. Laurie repeated this process until Mia understood that when she followed the sound of the snaps, she was rewarded with love.

Mia was a quick learner. In just moments, Laurie was leading Kendal with one hand and snapping for her dog with the other. Mia stayed close to her master and followed the sound of Laurie’s snapping fingers all the way to the outhouse. Laurie marveled at how rapidly Mia understood that there were times when she needed to be extra attentive and close to Laurie. It was no longer her master’s voice that Mia followed—it was her actions.

Born out of those quiet interactions, a new season of deeper communication grew between woman and dog. Mia discerned that there were times when following Laurie’s words was not enough. When Laurie moved in silence, Mia would trace her steps by keeping the tip of her nose in contact with the outside of her master’s calf. When Laurie stopped, Mia stopped. When Laurie moved forward,
Mia moved forward. When Laurie sat down, Mia would lie at her feet and rest either her chin or her front paw on top of her owner’s foot.

Mia’s sense of her master’s nearness only sharpened with time. Her perceptiveness is what prevented her from ever losing the one she loved. When Mia was in close contact with Laurie, voice commands were no longer necessary. Her dog stayed so close that she followed not only her master’s voice, but also her very movements.

Her dog’s actions made it clear. If you’re honestly going to follow another, you can’t do it from a distance. There is great purpose in proximity.

Inside the barn, we unloaded the food and arranged the dishes on the potluck table.

Laurie continued to voice her reflections. “It was my dog once again who modeled the truth that if I’m going to know and follow someone I love, it makes little sense to try and accomplish that if there’s a huge gap between us. To truly imitate the movements of another, I need to mirror them as closely as possible. My dog has taught me that it is indeed doable to know someone you can’t see with your eyes. Just like when I rise, she rises. When I move my foot, she moves with it. She has shown
me how to stop, rest, and move however and wherever her master does. My dog has chosen to mirror me without hesitation, without ever questioning why.”

“Keep going! I love this example.”

In her rising enthusiasm, Laurie gained more steam. “If I’m ever going to become honestly strong, dependable, and stable, I first need to empty the fake junk that previously filled my life and allow myself to become weak and dependent in an effort to build what is real. Do you see what I’m saying?”

“Yup, more than you know.” I moved over to an empty table closer to the wood stove. Patting the bench with my hand, I motioned for Laurie to come and sit with me. “Lou, the fact is, strength doesn’t come from strength—it grows out of our weakness. For us to become dependable, we first have to walk through the process of being truly dependent. Does that make sense?” I asked.

Laurie nodded as she stared at the fire. “I have to go back to the basics. I need to let go of what I once believed was right—my way—and quit pretending to know things I don’t. I want to follow not only my master’s voice, but his actions as well. Like my dog, only I can determine to shift myself closer to the peace that comes when I move silently with my master. It’s within his presence that I find complete rest. In this perfect place of greatest dependence, I need no words at all.”

F
rom atop my trusted horse, Ele, I looked over at Laurie, mounted on Lightfoot, a gray Arabian gelding. Lightfoot is the most balanced combination of what I like to call “gentle fire”—he’d become one of our most beloved horses on the ranch. The ease with which Laurie sat on him divulged that they were dear friends. Laurie’s dark blue helmet drew out and deepened the color of her eyes, already framed by her sweeping eyelashes. The combination was simply lovely.

Many years ago, my precious grandmother taught me that kind thoughts are wasted if they don’t become kind words. “Wow! You look beautiful today.”

Laurie’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. She laughed and gestured
toward her faded, threadbare jeans. “Yeah, I’m pretty stylish, all right.”

“No, I’m not talking about your clothes, I’m talking about you. You look happy, and you seem content.”

“Maybe it’s because I’m learning how to be. Mia keeps teaching me one life lesson after another. My dog has not only become one of my most cherished friends and companions, she’s also a mentor to me. Can you believe it?” She smiled, really smiled.

I nodded. I could believe it. God has used animals in my own life to heal so much. I let my friend’s words hang in the cool afternoon air. Our horses took us down one of our favorite dusty trails.

“What is Mia teaching you as your mentor?”

“Well, I’m learning through the actions of my dog that happiness is a choice; it’s not something that just happens to people. I’m responsible to choose it—not wait for it to choose me. I heard recently that happiness is based on our outward circumstances, but joy—real joy—comes from the inside, from God.”

Laurie shifted in her saddle and looked at me. She started
to laugh at what she was about to say. “Mia’s like a superhero. She models qualities I can only hope to acquire someday.”

I joined Laurie’s laughter at the image of her dog being a superhero. “Hmm, somehow the cape and tights thing just doesn’t seem to suit her. But then again, I don’t know Mia as well as you do.”

Laurie kept laughing. It was a genuine sound that far outweighed my dumb joke.

“So what’s your superdog motivating you to aspire toward?”

Thinking, Laurie rested her hand on Lightfoot’s withers, as if confirming his steadiness. “It wasn’t until Mia arrived in my home that I began to understand just how much I have lived my life guided solely by my emotions.”

“Guided by your emotions? Yikes! Now there’s some mean quicksand waiting to swallow you whole!” I laughed.

“No, really, I was like a dried-up autumn leaf. I allowed myself to be driven by the wind, never really knowing how or why I felt the way I did. Every little gust of life would toss me up or down in a whirlwind of emotional drama.”

Laurie laid the back of her hand across her helmeted brow. “Drama, drama, drama! I was all about the drama.”

I laughed again and urged my horse to slow a bit so we could remain side by side as we walked down the trail. “Well, girl, I’d say that you’ve enjoyed some fine company. There isn’t
a woman alive who—if she’s honest with herself—hasn’t stepped out onto the drama stage from time to time.”

Laurie was still laughing. “I know, but if they ever had a leader, I’m sure I would’ve been their exalted queen!” She extended her fingers above her helmet to form an impromptu crown and declared, “You know, ‘Hail to the queen!’”

“Hail to the queen!” I echoed, raising my fist in the air. I immediately withdrew my salute. “No, wait! If I were playing the drama game, I wouldn’t salute you! I’d start to cry and say, ‘You hurt my feelings! I can’t worship Your Highness because
I’m
the queen!’ I’d rather go somewhere and be depressed and dive into a bucket of ice cream to soothe my bruised ego.”

Laurie raised her index finger. “Make that a bucket of mint chocolate chip for me!” Cracking up over our fun exchange, we rode on into the fragrant juniper forest.

“I wish being a drama queen were actually this fun, but it’s not. When I did that—the drama thing—I felt miserable inside. I chose to live my life at the complete mercy of my latest emotion. It took Mia to help me understand that whatever emotion I yielded to became my master. I had chosen to become a slave to how I felt.”

Laurie reached down and gently rubbed Lightfoot’s smooth neck. “By allowing myself to be carried by every restless wave in the sea of my emotions, I always lived in a very unstable
place. Nothing was ever my fault. Everything always ‘just happened’ to me. Therefore, I could play the role of a victim who had no responsibility to change.

“Looking back, I can see how I talked myself into believing that I was helpless to control how I felt. As long as I kept choosing to base my happiness on temporary things—guess what? My happiness would be just as temporary. Sadly, mine was.”

She fell silent. I wondered if the rhythm of Laurie’s horse beneath her was as comforting as my horse was to me. I couldn’t recall a moment in my life when being in the saddle on the back of a dear friend wasn’t time well spent. The reassuring cadence always persuaded my heart to relax, to release the hurt I held inside. To express my gratitude, I reached back and rubbed the top of my mare’s powerful rump.

When Laurie spoke again, I could hear her voice strengthen with a new determination. “Unlike me, my dog has lost nearly everything—except her joy. There have been countless times when I’ve been so wrapped up in my dumb stuff, so anxious and upset over the difficult things that have come my way. Yet Mia has allowed no person, veterinarian, or circumstance to steal her joy. In the brief season I’ve known my girl, she’s persevered through more painful obstacles and suffering than I have yet to know in my lifetime.”

Falling silent again, Laurie glanced out into the forest. Emotion tightened her voice as she recounted her dog’s losses, her pain.

Mia had lived under a rusted-out car.

She had been starved by her previous owners, which had caused her to lose over half her normal weight.