A Big Little Life

logical and beautifully reasoned philosophical works in Western culture. In their modesty, neither Father Jerome nor Father Hugh would ever claim to be an intellectual (and what a ragtag mob they would be associating with if they did), but they seemed to me to be intellectuals in the best—if not the most common—sense of the word, which includes humility and honor in its definition. Trixie inspired an interesting discussion of the proposition, explored in many writings about faith, that when the supernatural steps into time, into our world from outside of time, it does not work through dazzling wonders; instead, it manifests subtly, through elements of the natural world. Like dogs.
    To us, Trixie was more than a dog. She was as a child, entrusted to our care, so that we might find in ourselves greater tenderness than we had imagined we possessed. But she was other than a child. She was an inspiration who restored our sense of wonder. She was a revelation who by her natural virtues encouraged me to take a new, risky, and challenging direction in my writing.
    I am in fact the fool who, throughout this account, I have said I am, so you may make of this what you will: Ibelieve that Trixie, in addition to being a dog and a child and an inspiration and a revelation, was also a quiet theophany a subtle manifestation of God, for by her innocent joy and by her actions in my life, she lifted from me all doubts of the sacred nature of our existence.
    T. S. Eliot again, in “East Coker,” lays down a truth that both comforts and terrifies: “And what you do not know is the only thing you know.” By “know” he means not our schooling as much as our learned convictions, the ideologies and fatuities and platitudes by which we define ourselves to ourselves and to others—and which are ignorance passing for knowledge. Such knowledge is of things that do not last, of systems that do not work, of pathways that lead nowhere. What we do not know—the destiny of the soul, the nature of eternity—is the knowledge that matters most, and only when we recognize this truth can we live with the humility required in the face of eternity.
    What I do not know is the only thing I know, and in that paradox sits Trixie. I do not know what she was in the fullness of her being, other than a dog, but I know the effect she had on us, and I know that she was both flesh and mystery, and therefore I know that she was something more than I can know.
     
    ON WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 2007, Trixie seemed listless, not her usual self, and I took her to the veterinarian. Bill Lyle thought she might have an infection, and he put her on an antibiotic.
    Thursday, she seemed already to be more like herself. I hid each capsule of medication in a gob of peanut butter, and in return for the treat, Trix pretended to be fooled.
    At eleven thirty Friday morning, Trixie refused food for the first time in her life, declining to take a single piece of the apple-cinnamon rice cake, one of her favorite things. Nothing could have been more ominous than this chow hound suddenly without appetite.
    Bill Lyle had the day off, and I took our girl to see Bruce Whitaker. That afternoon, in an ultrasound scan, he discovered a tumor on the spleen. “It could burst at any time, and she’ll die if it does. You have to get her into surgery right away.”
    A young vet tech, David, accompanied me to the SUV with Trixie, to lift her into the vehicle without putting pressure on her abdomen. He said, “Don’t drive too fast, you don’t need an accident. God is with her, you’ll get there in time, she’ll be okay.”
    His concern and kindness helped settle my nerves. On the drive to the veterinary specialty hospital, the facility at which Wayne Berry had performed Trixie’s spinal surgery, I did not exceed the speed limit more than did the other traffic. But mine was not the slowest vehicle on the road, either.
    In spite of not feeling well, Trix sat up in back, gazing out one window and then another. Regardless of the circumstances or the destination, a car ride was an adventure to be enjoyed.
    The day was warm but not insufferably hot, the skycloudless, the air dry and limpid. The mountains rose purple in the east. This was a perfect afternoon for chasing tennis balls on the pepper-tree lawn, for sitting together on the outdoor sofa in the cool shade of the game-room terrace, watching hummingbirds hovering among the roses, the ocean in the distance. How much it hurt to think