There's no place like home.

Luna came home from the vet today. We stopped at our favorite beach and had it all to ourselves. She stood at the shoreline and let the waves push up against her. It made me nervous, that power against her weak little body- I thought I might have to do a heroic lifeguard rescue if a large wave came, but I didn't have the heart to call her away from water- she was having a moment.

I think we're in the clear for now. One of the many vets we have been to this week said "when you have an old dog you think every episode is the end, and then just when you've gotten used to it and stop panicking, it is."

Death seems to be hounding me. I relished the essay "And Passion Most of All" in the Sun this month in which Michelle Cacho-Negrette beautifully recounted the birth of her best friend's last affair before she died of cancer. Other titles from this month in the same magazine: Surviving the Body, Grief Arrives In Its Own Time, and the subject of the readers write was Small Victories.

In my 8th grade English Class we are doing a study of the poems Whitman wrote grieving Lincoln's assassination.

I have been rewatching the first season of Six Feet Under.

The documentary I wandered into after dropping Luna off at the vet, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, contained in its content close relationships between a man, Mark, and some parrots. During the course of the film, some died, causing great sadness for Mark, as well as some profound realizations about the interconnectedness of all beings.

One of my students lost her grandmother, Francis, this week. My favorite thing about Francis was that she loved to ride her adult sized tricycle with her little white dog in the back basket through town. She would creak down the street, everything dutifully covered from the sun except her lips, pursed with the effort.

It is never clear to me whether or not the universe conspires to teach me lessons, or whether it is simply a matter of what I pay attention to creating the illusion of a grand plan. In the end, I suppose the outcome is the same, whether the lesson be fated or not.

No one survives life, and in this is the beauty of life. Learning to accept this is truly grace.

I am thankful that Luna and I have a little more time.