I  wasn’t sure why I decided to take an acting class, but I am learning why every time I go to class.

Christine Decker, a brilliant actor and the teacher of my acting class, and Red, are old friends. When Christine played the role of a failing dairy farmer’s wife in a piece I wrote for Hubbard Hall, Christine cried at one point on stage.

Red, who was in the theater (it was a rehearsal) rushed onto the stage to comfort her next to her. This is why Karen Thompson wanted him to come and live with me, she saw the therapy dog in him.

Last night, in my acting class, I decided to abandon my T.S. Eliot monologue and decided on the spur of the movement to do a different monologue, one from my life.

I knew right away what it should be.

I called it “the Story Of Red,” and I told the story of this remarkable creature and how he came to be in my life and how we shared the extraordinary experience of hospice work and our therapy work with the elderly.

I had to improvise and create the monologue in seconds. I knew that I could. But what a rich story – God, cruelty, life, death, and the fusion of two souls.

It went well, it just flowed out of me. I didn’t really even have to think about it, I just let it go.

At the end, I  said that Red was nearing the end of his life. He is dying.

I try very hard to never lie to myself or to you, that is my idea of salvation.

The truth is that Red is beginning to fail – his sight, his back, his awareness.

One of these days, that fractured spine will render him paralyzed and in great pain – there is no cure for it – and as I am sure most of you know, I will not permit him to suffer one  hour more than is necessary, should it come to that. It’s happened twice. It will happen again, and each time will be worse.

It could be a year, six months, or today. Nobody knows. But it is coming, Red is failing. And his extraordinary life is worth the telling. It was just suddenly so clear to me.

I was sitting in the class going over the T.S. Eliot piece I have always loved – The Love Story of J. Alfred Prufrock, my chosen monologue – and it seemed to me I just was never comfortable reading this piece. It never seemed right for me.  I am a story teller, not a poet or an actor, it just seemed outside of my range. Sometimes, that’s a reason for doing something, sometimes it isn’t.

I love the poem, but it hit me suddenly that I had my own rich monologue sitting right there in front of me. It was the story of Red.

When it was my turn, I asked Christine if it was all right to drop the T.S. Eliot monologue and substitute it with one of own, one I would tell spontaneously.

She said of course. I took a deep breath and stood up in front of the class and was as comfortable as if I were sitting home talking to Maria.

The story just flowed – how Karen Thompson called me to say she had just read one of my books and God told her Red belonged with me, how Red came to me after six months and just became my dog.

Karen wanted me to have Red because she wanted him to be a therapy dog, to live beyond just herding sheep. I could offer both. She saw this great gift of empathy and intuition in him. She wanted people to benefit from it.

I talked in the monologue about our hospice work, about the many times Red has helped people leave this world in love and peace, about his intuitiveness, his work with the elderly, his strong and grounding presence by my side, and about the great love he inspires in people.

I talked about what a happy story the story of Red is, I will surely miss him when he goes. I spoke about how  I will not make the story of Red into a story of misery or mourning, he was a great gift to me, and he will go when he is ready, and has had the richest and fullest life possible.

I will have nothing to complain about or mourn when that happens. Pain is inevitable, suffering is a choice.

“It is our destiny and the destiny of everything in our world that we must come to an end,” wrote the philosopher Paul Tillich. “Every end that we experience in nature and mankind speaks to us with a loud voice: you also will come to an end!”

Working with Red, I learned that is not something I care to run or hide from or deny. Death is the story of life itself.

We  humans need not ask the question of the meaning of time, we are aware of the eternal to which we belong and from which we are estranged by the bondage of time.

Like me, Red must come to  end.

So the story of Red is my monologue now, he went from a barn in Ireland to the center of my life.

At the end of my monologue, Christine kept looking at Red.

She came over and lay down next to him and held  him for awhile. He got right into it, Red does not ever miss a chance to love somebody, or be loved back. He has made me a better human in every way, and when he decides to go, I hope to wave him off with cheers and laughter, I  wish him every happiness in his next life.

So I have a new monologue, the story of Red, and I think it’s the right one. I can’t think of a better monologue for me that to honor Red.

When I finished, I saw all the eyes fixed on me and Red. There was a lot of feeling in the room.

I never felt I read T.S. Eliot’s wonderful poem well. I felt good about my new monologue.

Christine invited me to bring Red and open our Showcase performance (every class puts on a show in the big theater at the end of their last lesson) on March 1 at 7 p.m. at the Old Castle Theater in Bennington, Vt.) with the story of Red.

I guess I will get to act after all, and Red will be right next to me, where he belongs.