No end in sight...

This is the last day.   

I do not mean to imply the end, only the passing of a phase, and, the inevitability of a beginning of a new phase: passing on, is after all, the passing into.  This evening, a few hundred miles from my city, Jack will pass from what has been our time into a new time.   It is fitting that a moment from now Alaina will end her time in the desert.    Ah, change: the only constant.

It is hard for me to think of this apart from the rest of my life.  This, for me, is the year of change.  I will be leaving the service in January, turn thirty only days later, graduate college in May, and begin what I suppose should be termed my adult life.  I will need to work, or whatever, and think about how I am not getting any younger.  I will need a good wife, and a place for us to have children.  I will need to think about a decent car and the cost of insurance and property taxes.  I will need to be responsible for someone other than me, imparting unto the future the sum of my experiences and knowledge and how my children will get along once I am not there to guide them.  I will tell the stories of my life as parables and fables....and they will listen....and they will learn of a brief time when I had a partner named Jack.

Jack, I will say, lived with me for a while.  He was a good looking boy who had led a sheltered life and was a little timid.  At the time, I was living like a fugitive college student in a Mexican ghetto.  I will tell of our adventures, and how Jack learned about the ways of a proper adventurer.  About guns, booze, broads, and the pleasures of a bachelor's life.  And I will tell them of what I learned.

About how a little dog can teach you the value of company.  The worth of a trusted friend, even if you see each other for the briefest of moments.  Of comfort, spontaneous play, and the ever-present need to be loved and cared for.  About simple pleasures and forgiveness for wrongs which truly don't matter.  That floors can be cleaned in an instant, but feelings take time to heal.  Mostly, I will tell about how it is important to have someone to care for: that the act of giving care to those who need it will always trump our own needs.  That I suppose is the Tao of Jack: to be loved, you must love.  

Thanks for reading.