A funny thing happened on my way through life.

I fell in love. With a dog. Man’s best friend. Of course, the dog was in love with my husband and now that he’s gone she has no choice but me… but no matter. I am the one who feeds, who lets her sleep on my side of the bed, who walks her so she can pee and poop.

How can poop become a weapon? When did it become a tool to get back at me, to make me crazy, to manipulate me? It is and it does and it has.

I order my dog to poop on command. It doesn’t happen often. And perhaps it is just a random act of nature. But when it happens, it is a joyous event. Why isn’t it like that for people? Why do you have to be a dog to be rewarded for a good poop?

A funny thing happened on my way through life.

In a twelve-month period I had a niece die, a brother-in-law die, a husband die, a best girlfriend die. I sold a house that had sheltered our family of five and where the entirety of my life with my husband was spent. I bought a condo that is a third the size of the sold house.  In the same twelve-month period, I had a grandchild born, a son married, a son buy a home, both sons start new careers. I cashed in a life insurance policy that when we were young I had thought was a waste of time, money and allocation of funds that we could have funneled to pay off loans.

The good things try to outweigh the bad things, but some of the bad things are pretty bad. I lean into the good things, I try to influence the balance of life, but sometimes the bad things…well, they are, as I said before, pretty bad.

So what’s so funny about that? That in the midst of grief, happy things happen. A baby is born. Grand twins grow a year older. A son embarks on a new phase of life, a new daughter-in-law enters. That my kids are whole, balanced, and although grieving themselves, move forward. That just when you think your world has stopped, you realize it really hasn’t. I got T-boned at an intersection on my life’s journey, an act of God. That Shit Happens.

And there we are, back at poop.