Many friends have read and processed and given feedback on my previous article, “All Chances Gone. No Beagle Puppy”. They have also extended to me much love and support, for which I am very grateful.
I too have read and reread, edited a bit here and there as something such as this, put out there for public consumption should be painstakingly authored. I have reread and processed, and taken into account much of the feedback and advice, and even exhortations I have received from others.
I do after all, ponder.
I came to the conclusion that I was still being manipulated and controlled… by my own fears. Was I frightened of a emotional bugbear blown out of all proportion over the years even if that bugbear may prove, in fact, to be realistic in some ways?
I was giving him too much power… where he has none.
I was letting fear be justification for not doing what I truly wished to do, forgoing two opportunities, one of which will never come again, and the other which may never be offered to me again.
The first opportunity is that of being able to say ‘goodbye’ and tell my father that I loved him in every way left open to me, and those ways fiercely. Perhaps it is selfish, and I don’t know if I have a need or not yet, but I would very much not like to realize down the road that I have need for this closure. I acknowledge that time might dampen some feelings and allow other feelings to have primacy and with those, find only regret at having made a mistake.
The second is to see family that I dearly love and have had little opportunity to be close to. The lack of closeness was my own fault. I was so withdrawn into a shell of protection that I self-denied myself one of the best gifts I have and ever will have been given. The association was too strong. Again, I think this was driven by a sort of fear. I spoke of regrets above. This regret already exists and is far greater than I anticipate the other might ever be if I again let those fears control me.
Time marches relentlessly onward and I have already lost much opportunity as now age and disease, and its thieving nature may have already robbed (No, my hurt and foolishness did the robbing, alas.) me of what I most desire. I could easily spend a lot of effort and hatred toward myself for this foolishness, but it is pointless and I must act on the lesson of giving the grace I give others to myself.
I don’t know about Beagle Puppies. That scenario, with time and temperance, seems less likely, but I do acknowledge it is still a possible reality. I honestly don’t how to handle it if those fears are realized. I only know that I cannot let those fears dictate what I do.
I had for a few days tried to pass the responsibility for how I handled those fears off onto the shoulders of my father. That is nonsense. He can do nothing to me, then or now, and he cannot ‘make’ me fearful. Only I have that responsibility. It’s past time I owned that. Another opportunity for self-grace in that I think that trying to pass the responsibility was an inevitable part of the process, but that grace only has meaning if I also admit it was wrong and chose to do that which is right.
I could wish that Beagle Puppies played no role. Such lament is useless, self-indulgent, and wasteful. I could lament that Beagle Puppies ‑ever- played a role, ‑ever- were a ‘thing’, but lamentations do not alter. Lament only hinders one from progressing forward if maintained longer than is appropriate and healthy.
I will, from this point redefine Beagle Puppy to mean only something that I very much love. I will discard that other definition in a box of useless things destined for eventual annihilation in furnace inferno. There is one Beagle Puppy like no other. He slumbers on the apex of his dwelling… when he’s not patrolling the skies over France, keeping them safe from the menace of Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen. He admirably serves as perpetual shortstop and never lets a ground ball past in formal and pickup-games. He did once make a failed bid to forcibly replace Charlie Brown as team manager, but we will speak only of his successes here.
I had more loved images than would make sense in-line in a post already pushing those limits, so here are the remainder:
