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decided to wait 24 hours. The next day, Chicago had a whiteout blizzard—not a good day to bring a puppy home, I thought. Especially if you live in a high-rise. It’s hard to house-train from the seventy-seventh floor even when the sun is shining—puppies need to go outside a lot when they’re first learning when (and when not) to go.
    Nevertheless, Stedman and I donned our winter gear and used our four-wheel-drive to get across town. Just to “have another look,” I swore. Miss Sadie, the runt of the litter, spoke to my heart. I love making the underdog a winner.
    An hour later we were at Petco, buying a crate and wee-wee pads, collar and leash, puppy food and toys.
    The crate started out next to the bed. And still she cried. We moved the crate up onto the bed, right in the center, so she had a full view of me—I wanted to do anything I could to help her avoid separation anxiety on her first night away from the litter. And yet there was more whimpering and whining. Then full-blown yelping. So I took her out of the crate and let her sleep on my pillow. I know that’s no way to train a dog. But I did it anyway—to the point where Sadie thought I was her littermate. By the time I woke up in the morning, she had nuzzled her way to my shoulder, which was her most comfortable sleeping position.
    Five days after bringing her home, I lost track of good sense and let myself get talked into adopting her brother Ivan. For 24 hours, life was grand: Ivan was Sadie’s playmate, and I didn’t have to be. (It was nice to get some relief from games of fetch and rubber squeezy bunnies.)
    Ivan had one full day of romping in the sun with Sadie and my two golden retrievers, Luke and Layla. Then he refused dinner. And then the diarrhea started, followed by vomiting and more diarrhea. That was on Saturday. By Monday night, we knew he had the dreaded parvovirus.
    I’d been through parvo 13 years before, with my brown cocker, Solomon. It nearly killed him. He stayed in the veterinary hospital for 20 days. He was more than a year old when he got it. Ivan was only 11 weeks. His young immune system wasn’t strong enough to overcome it. Four days after we took Ivan to the emergency clinic, he died.
    That morning, Sadie refused to eat. Even though she had tested negative before, I knew she had parvo, too.
    So began the ordeal of trying to save her. Plasma transfusions. Antibiotics. Probiotics. And daily visits. I wish for every citizen of this country the kind of health care and treatment this little dog received. The first four days, she got increasingly worse. At one point I told the vet, “I’m prepared to let her go. She shouldn’t have to fight this hard.”
    But fight she did. By the next day her white blood cell count started to improve, and two days later she was happily eating bits of chicken.
    Shortly afterward Sadie came home, skinny and frail but ready to start life anew. She eventually recovered fully.
    During the time she and Ivan spent in the hospital, I was worried and restless and got little sleep—the same as it would have been with any family member. Which is what I know for sure pets represent in our lives: a connection to caring that’s unconditional. And reciprocal.
    Puppy love. Nothing like it.

     
     
    When you make loving others the story of your life, there’s never a final chapter, because the legacy continues. You lend your light to one person, and he or she shines it on another and another and another. And I know for sure that in the final analysis of our lives—when the to-do lists are no more, when the frenzy is finished, when our e-mail inboxes are empty—the only thing that will have any lasting value is whether we’ve loved others and whether they’ve loved us.

Gratitude
    “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is ‘Thank you,’ it will be enough.”
    —Meister Eckhart

 
    For years I’ve been advocating the power and pleasure of being grateful. I kept a gratitude journal for a