Last Thursday would have been my brother Phil's 61st birthday, had he survived. On Saint Patrick's Day 1996, he took his family's golden retriever out for a walk near some ponds behind his house in Marblehead, Mass. He never came home, and the following day his body was recovered from one of those ponds. Shakespeare might have called him "a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy," if he hadn't given Hamlet the phrase to use on the skull of poor Yorick. Yes, Phil was a fine, funny, hard-working, dearly beloved son, brother, husband, father and uncle.
Six years ago today, I died for about four minutes when my heart went into fibrillation at a meeting with a client in Oxford, PA, about 40 miles from home. (No, it wasn't the client's doing). By luck, an emergency rescue team from the nearby firehouse arrived with jump-starting gear in time to get me going again, and here I am, with an implanted electronic pacemaker-defibrillator to guard against recurrences. Today, at just about the six-year anniversary of the date on which I received my first implanted device, I received a replacement.
With luck, I should be in good shape for the next six to eight years. Life is good.
It was a lovely day in late March; the sun shone and the crocuses bloomed. A young nanny goat frolicked in the sunshine.
The scene charmed me so, I didn't notice at first that the little goat was missing a hind leg.
The occasion was a visit to a veterinary clinic near where I live. The vet tech supervising the goat told me her name is Peggy. She lost her left rear leg because of severe infection from a dog bite Peggy's former owners had left untreated for too long. I knelt down and Peggy danced right up to me, pooped on my shoe and butted my chin gently. Those little nanny goat horns gave a certain amount of emphatic authority to that butt, however gentle. Goat poop isn't a serious problem. "Broom and dustpan is all you need," the tech told me.
Lost leg notwithstanding, Peggy pranced about as happily as any four-legged goat on that smiling spring morning.
So, whatever YOUR troubles may be (and may they be from few to none), happy first day of spring!
