Fridays

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Most people look forward to Friday. It marks the end of the work week and, as soon as work ends, the beginning of a weekend doing more of the things you choose to do and fewer of the things someone makes you do. As a child, I loved Friday because I often had all my homework finished, so I could play more and spend most of Saturday morning with cartoons. As an adult, it meant that I could go home, and if I was exceptionally tired I could crash, and if I achieved nothing that night I had two more days. I abused that sometimes. However, in 2019 something changed, and for many years I hated Fridays. Until now.

On a Friday in 2019, I came home from work to find that my beagle had finally lost his almost two year battle against testicular cancer. He was 16, so I was not shocked, but I was devastated, and that Friday became a terrible day. That weekend, I don't think I accomplished a thing besides burying him and cleaning up the spots where he had slept. Each Friday after that marked another week since he died, and although the weeks became enough that I could not count them without effort, I continued to wake up Fridays slightly saddened that another Friday passed since my best friend in the world died.

Despite this, I had a new beagle, and although I also brought him home on a Friday, it wasn't until this month that I registered that. I was singing "Amazing Grace" and came to the part 'Was blind but now I see' and I suddenly realized that Fridays were also a beginning. For my new dog, a Friday night had been our first together, and yet I had let four years of Fridays pass embroiled with sadness rather than recognize this wonderful change.

So, now I wake up and thank God for helping me realize that Fridays also include new joys. It's a special kind of joy for me. Yes, Courage and I spend other hours together, except on nights when I teach late where he gets about 90 minutes between my return from work and bed time, but Friday is special. It's when friends get together, and now rather than get together with pictures and memories of a dead friend, I share some of those wonderful things with a new one.

I am grateful to have Fridays restored to me this summer as a day to which I can look forward. Courage is a good friend too, and it doesn't distract from Indiana to spend time making joyful moments with a new dog. I think the worst tragedy for a loss would be if they knew that when they died you stopped living.