Photo by Bob Saltz

I sometimes think that I am divided into two parts – the person I am, and the person I want to be.

Anna Freud says awakened people spend much of their lives trying to reconcile the two elements, to integrate them into one whole. I suppose we all want to be the person we want to be, and if you are like me, you fail as much as you succeed.

Photography is an ironic pursuit these days, people with their cellphones can take remarkable photographs, often quite as good or better than I can with my fancy lenses and big cameras. One of the ironies for me is that I  am increasingly drawn to taking pictures of people but dislike having them taken of me.

This is not a sustainable moral position, so I accede to being photographed, never more so than at our Open Houses. I don’t care for the photos of me that I usually see.

But it is something I need to do. Like a postcards, I am sometimes one of the memories people want to take home, although this always astonishes me. And I need to accept who I am as well as who I wish to be.

Bob and Lee Saltz drive up to the farm from New Jersey yesterday to come to the house. They are the sweetest, nicest people.  They wanted to thank me for  writing “Going Home: Finding Peace When Pets Die,” to thank me for saving their sanity, as they put it. Since I am not known for sanity, this is always jolting to hear.

The Saltz’s had a wrenching three-year period where they watched their beloved Lab suffer from cancer and then die, and they wanted to thank me personally for writing the book, which they say helped them, even saved them. It was especially touching because the Saltzes did not really follow the advice I offered in my book – I personally could not endure a three-year-ordeal with the dog, for their sake or mine.

And I can’t say I would recommend it to others.

Yet the book did help them in other ways.

When I suggested giving dogs a “Perfect Day” because they die or are put down, Bob and Lee gave their Lab a perfect day month after month, year after year. This is fuzzy ground, and we all have to make our own decisions about how to handle it. When Izzy was diagnosed with a viral kind of cancer, I asked that he be put down the next day. I can’t really say if I did this for me or for him. Maybe for both.

I think Mitzi was a lucky dog, and I am glad my book helped.

I was surprised when Bob sent me this photo this morning.

I liked this one very much. Maria said it looked like me, and I wondered why it was that Bob Saltz with his Iphone took the only photograph of me that I really liked. Did it capture who I wish to be?

At first,  I wasn’t sure why I liked it.

I think, I told Maria, that it was because it looked like who I want to be.

Yesterday was a perfect day for me, it was one of those days when people kept coming up to me, and to Maria, thanking us. For opening up the farm, for herding with the dogs, for  encouraging them to write books, make art, live their lives. I don’t crave having fans, I do not see myself as a celebrity in any way.

But this was different than that.

Any teacher knows that every student is not going to make it, does not always want to listen or can’t. In a sense you live for those that are just waiting for a tap or a nod or a word to light them up. There were a lot of moments like that yesterday.

I believe the creative spark lives in all of us, God’s gift to every human being. Some of us can light it, some can’t. When it can be lit, it is a beautiful and transformative thing to see.

I am one of those people who pays much more attention to criticism than to praise. I grew up without any praise and am just not used to it. I tent to disbelieve or dismiss it. Yesterday, I didn’t dismiss it, and while I wouldn’t care for it to go to my head, I saw that I needed it sometimes, and that it meant a lot to me. I am grateful that I was able to hear it yesterday. I think it means I am growing up. It’s not something I need or want all the time, but it is something that I should hear, if it is real. That is a part of who I am and who I want to be.

A shy couple named Karen and Jim came up to me – they were nervous and uncomfortable – they came from Pennsylvania, a long drive and Jim – Karen was too tongue-tied to speak, I could see – said they both wanted to thank me in person for my writing about love and life and Maria. I wrote that I had never given up on love.

They said it inspired them to get married, and they were now newly weds and Karen was pregnant. If it was a girl, he said, they would name it Maria, it if was a boy (they didn’t wish to know in advance) they would call it Jon.

I was uncharacteristically speechless, but quite moved. When that happens, I just get quiet, I truly do not know what to say. I gave each of them a hug and then went to do a sheep herding demo. I didn’t see them again, i doubt I will ever see them again, but I will think of them from time to time, and what their meaning is in my life.

It is a great gift to help ground people unmoored by their great love of a dying dog, or to help them to the publish a book or make art, or not give up on love.

I do not make this art or write books for other people or even tell them how to mourn a dog they love, they have to do all of it themselves or it is worth nothing. But looking at the photo Bob took if me with his little cell phone, I came to realized why I liked this photo so much.

Because, at least for one day, at least for yesterday, and hopefully for many more days, the photo seemed to me to be not only who I am but who I wish to be.

Yesterday, the two met one another and met one another across the bridge of souls.