“Getting old isn’t for sissies.” Paul Newman was quoted as saying not long before he died. He wasn’t the first to say that, of course. I’m saying it too and I won’t be the last. Our golden retriever Annie is getting old. At what point will I eliminate the “getting?” When does a dog cross the bridge between “getting” and “old?” I don’t want to admit it for her any more than I want to admit it for myself.

I’ve already written about my strategy for dealing with Annie’s aging. Beginning last year when Annie was nine, people would observe her white face and slow gait and express sympathy that a dog of “only” nine seemed older. I began giving her age as 12 and, instead of sympathy, people complimented her on what great shape she was in for such an “old” dog. I smiled. Annie seemed to smile.

Yesterday, we noticed that Annie’s face was swollen (can you tell from the picture?). Two days before, her vet gave her antibiotics for a cyst that may require an operation. We think the antibiotics are the cause, but we don’t know for sure. Because it was a Sunday, we couldn’t get her vet on the phone, so we called the emergency clinic and they told us to stop the antibiotics and give her Benadryl.

As I write this in my home office, it’s 4 AM and Annie is asleep in the darkness by the bed. I don’t want to wake her to see if the swelling has gone down. Researching possible causes for the swelling is as scary as the swelling. Maybe more so. Possible causes range from a benign insect sting to cancer. I wish Annie could tell us where it hurts or if it hurts. At least a child would cry and we’d know something was wrong. Is something wrong?

Time will tell. Time will tell. In just the past year, two dear friends have died of cancer, one is in remission from breast cancer, one from bladder cancer and still another friend has just completed a round of stem cell replacement therapy for leukemia. Where does it end? That’s the rub. We know where it ends. Life is terminal.

Seeing Annie makes me think of my own mortality. Is consciousness a curse or a blessing? The answer is obviously, “Yes.” Annie doesn’t seem conscious of anything beyond wanting to be comfortable and even then I’m not so sure. She seems to prefer the hard wood floor to the $50.00 cedar bed with a soft, fleece cover that we just bought her (“Fleas can’t live in cedar” the pet store owner told us).

I know for sure that I’m suffering when I see her cyst and her swelling. Whether she’s suffering or not, I can’t tell. Annie just got up. The swelling on her face is down, but now her ears seem swollen. We all know the Serenity Prayer: God grant me the serenity To accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; And wisdom to know the difference. No one knows for sure the origins of the prayer. Was it found on the door of a Church in the 1600s? Did the theologian Reinhold Neibuhr write it? Alcoholics Anonymous and other twelve-step programs have adopted it as their “mantra.” Whoever wrote it, I am intimate with only one being who seems to live it.