{"id":32919,"date":"2024-09-10T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-10T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/freelancechristianity\/?p=32919"},"modified":"2024-09-10T08:49:22","modified_gmt":"2024-09-10T12:49:22","slug":"remember-frieda-a-dog-who-was-a-person","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/freelancechristianity\/remember-frieda-a-dog-who-was-a-person\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering Frieda–a dog who was a person"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Facebook reminded me that we lost our beloved dachshund Frieda six years ago yesterday. She lived a long life\u2013a bit over 14 years\u2013and left an indelible mark. In her honor I\u2019m repeating the very first blog post I ever wrote for this blog, over a dozen years ago.<\/p>\n

A bit of background first. For that first post twelve years ago, I chose an essay that I had written at a writer\u2019s conference several years earlier. At that time, I was at the very beginning of a long process in which I gradually learned\u00a0 to move away from the academic writing that I had been producing and publishing for twenty years to a much more intimate and personal (and shorter) style.<\/p>\n

On the last evening of that writer\u2019s conference, each of us was required to read something publicly (to around 100 people) that we had written that week. Not surprisingly, I chose to write about someone whom I loved and was close to my heart, undoubtedly the second most important female in my life during her years with us. Here is \u201cHail Frieda, Full of Grace.\u201d<\/p>\n

I have unexpectedly fallen in love with a real bitch. She\u2019s cute, with dark brown eyes and medium brown hair. Although I generally prefer long hair on a female, she wears her hair extremely short and it works. She tends to bite me when she gets overexcited while we\u2019re playing, but I still find her pearly white teeth very attractive. Although she\u2019s willing to allow a\u00a0m\u00e9nage \u00e0 trois\u00a0when my wife is home, she prefers it being just the two of us in bed. Her name is Frieda.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is a new experience for me. No one has ever looked at me with a gaze that says \u201cyou were put on earth just for me.\u201d No female has ever marked me as a love interest and dared me not to love her back. This is the first time I\u2019ve been chosen before I knew I was even being considered. And it\u2019s not as if Frieda doesn\u2019t have lots of options for love interests. Everybody loves Frieda\u2014she\u2019s extroverted and assertive, yet can be warm, demure, and submissive. She can take over a room just by walking into it, yet is happy to spend hours being quiet doing whatever you\u2019re doing. She is fluent in both English and German. Her profile would be a killer on\u00a0eharmony.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I never thought I\u2019d fall in love with a dog. I\u2019ve always been a cat person; there\u2019s been at least one cat in my life consistently ever since I was ten years old. A cat is a perfect pet for an introvert; they clearly would prefer to be left alone most of the time and will only socialize when it is their idea. There\u2019s something edgy about even the most domesticated of cats, as if it just crossed the line from its wild ancestors and might cross back at a moment\u2019s notice. It takes time and effort to get to know a cat\u2014time and effort on the human\u2019s part, that is. The cat couldn\u2019t care less. Self-reliance, independence, confidence, a sense of mystery and aloofness\u2014I find much to admire in a cat.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Dogs are a different story; not so much to admire. Dogs are so obsequious, as if canine completeness requires human approval.. But Frieda didn\u2019t and doesn\u2019t\u00a0need\u00a0<\/strong>me\u2014she\u00a0chose<\/strong>\u00a0me, out of the blue. Frieda is part of the four animal menagerie who arrived when my son and daughter-in-law moved in, joining the two geriatric animals already in the house; she decided early on that I was going to be hers. I\u2019ve seen animals attach themselves to a single human before (usually my wife, a dog person). Not to me, though. So the \u201cclick click click\u201d of toenails behind me everywhere I go, an enthusiasm when I come home so over the top that I worry about her health, having a canine jammed in next to me everywhere I sit, a 10 \u00bd pound dachshund trying to spoon with me in bed\u2014these are new and sometimes disconcerting experiences.<\/em><\/p>\n

I once saw a bumper sticker that said \u201cI want to be the person that my dog thinks I am.\u201d Not me\u2014that\u2019s too much pressure. No human being could possibly deserve the rapturous upside-down look Frieda occasionally gives me when she\u2019s laying next to me or on my lap, just making sure that I\u2019m still there.\"\"<\/a>\u00a0Of course such reverence is easy for Frieda\u2014she doesn\u2019t know about all the ways in which I am unworthy of unconditional love. That\u2019s one of my great fears\u2014what if they (my wife, my sons, my friends, my students\u2014anybody) knew the truth about me? Frieda doesn\u2019t know the truth about me, and that\u2019s why she\u2019s attached to me at the hip. She doesn\u2019t know any better.<\/em><\/p>\n

I learned as a kid in Sunday School that grace is \u201cunmerited favor.\u201d Divine grace is something I don\u2019t deserve, a gift I cannot earn, bestowed simply \u201cbecause.\u201d Over the years, grace has evolved for me into \u201cGod knows that you\u2019re a shit and a loser, but chooses to forgive you and to love you anyway.\u201d Today I\u2019m thinking that grace is more like Frieda. The miracle of grace is not that \u201cyou are unworthy but I choose to treat you as if you are worthy,\u201d but \u201cyou are worthy.\u201d Not \u201cI love you in spite of,\u201d or \u201cI love you because of,\u201d but \u201cI love you.\u201d If there is, somewhere in the universe, a transcendent grace and love like that, I am in awe.\u00a0 That\u2019s something worth believing and having faith in. That\u2019s a thread of possibility that should be followed in order to see where it leads. Of course, Frieda\u2019s just a simple dog and doesn\u2019t\u00a0realize that her standards are ridiculously low. But as Leonard Bernstein wrote in\u00a0Mass<\/strong>, \u201cSing like you like to sing\/God loves all simple things\/For God is the simplest of all.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s six years since Frieda left us. Although we have another canine person running our house now\u2013our corgi Bovina who will turn three next month\u2013I still miss Frieda. I still carry her in my heart, as well as on my left arm. For my sixtieth birthday several years ago, my tattoo artist son made sure that she goes with me wherever I go.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook reminded me that we lost our beloved dachshund Frieda six years ago yesterday. She lived a long life\u2013a bit over 14 years\u2013and left an indelible mark. In her honor I\u2019m repeating the very first blog post I ever wrote for this blog, over a dozen years ago. A bit of background first. For that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2938,"featured_media":32922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,36,41,63,104],"tags":[195,222,231,329,501],"class_list":["post-32919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dogs","category-family","category-grace","category-love","category-writing","tag-dogs","tag-family","tag-frieda","tag-love","tag-writing"],"yoast_head":"\nRemembering Frieda--a dog who was a person<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Six years ago a very important person in my life passed away. 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