Luna Life

This face is my favorite thing in the whole world to see. I currently have over 8,000 photos stored on my phone, and it is not an exaggeration to say that nearly all of them are of this big furry face. In times of happiness, I seek out this wolfishly grin to share my joy with. In times of sadness, these wide eyes brimming with such warm love and devotion bring me comfort.

This is the face of Luna, my dearest and greatest companion. As I write this, she is eight years young and still full of all the energy and excitement that she had when I brought her home as a little chubby puppy when she was merely six weeks old. Eight years is a long time to know somebody, and my relationship with her has outlasted every single human friendship of mine that has come and then inevitably gone over the years. But isn’t that one of the most wonderful things about dogs? The bond you form with a good dog is far stronger and more powerful than anything you could share with another human. Humans are fickle creatures, full of emotions and susceptible to negativity. Dogs emanate an unconditional love, warmth, and understanding that does not come naturally to most humans.

I believe that dogs are placed into our lives to teach us how to be good. For those of us who are already good at heart, dogs teach us how to be even better. Throughout the years I have learned more from Luna than I could ever hope to list out accurately, and I still continue to learn more from her each and every day. Not only is Luna my dearest friend, she is everything to me. She is my shoulder to cry on, my strength, my light in the dark, my unwavering joy. When I fall, she lifts me up. When the world is caving in around me, she pushes me to keep fighting. Luna has saved my life more times than I can count, and I worry that I will never be able to express how grateful to her that I am for all she does.

Then I remind myself that she knows. Of course she knows; I can see it in her eyes. Dogs are far more intelligent than we give them credit for, and Luna is the smartest person I know.

In this particular moment, it was a chilly October afternoon. We were out on one of our many adventures, and I was a bit grumpy about it. I was tired and would have been quite content to just laze around the house and most likely nap the day away. Normally Luna is happy to snuggle up and nap with me, generally enjoying the occasional lazy day seemingly as much as I do. But this particular day, Luna would not let me rest. She knew that I had troubles brewing in my mind, and she knows better than anyone else how I get when I retreat into my darkened thoughts.

No, Luna was not going to stand idly by and let me cave in to my anxiety and depression this day. She essentially dragged me around by my arm, snuffling and grumbling her intentions as she pointed me to her leash and my shoes. Finally, knowing all too well how hard it is to ignore a riled up and determined 100 pound dog when she sets her mind to something, I caved in and we headed out for a hike.

An hour into the hike, and I was basically just allowing myself to be dragged along behind Luna like a zombie. She was bounding all over the path with a vibrant energy that I wish I had, picking up various rocks and sticks along the way to shove into my hands proudly as if each and every one was the greatest treasure she had ever come across. I smile and laugh occasionally, but I’m still tired and distracted, silently just waiting for her to wear herself out so that we can go back home and get some sleep. We approached a particularly pretty little clearing in the center of looming red-rock walls. There was a tiny trickling stream running through the center of it due to the recent rain, and a few small flowers decorated the edges of the path. Luna loves flowers, so I let her loose to sniff them to her hearts content while I took a seat on a nearby chilly flat rock. As if sending that my enjoyment of our adventure was half-hearted, Luna started making a fuss. I did my best to ignore her at first. Not intentionally, but just absently lingering in my own thoughts. A booming sneeze startled me at last, reverberating off the surrounding red rock and echoing loudly all around us.

I turned around to see Luna crouched low to the ground, earns pinned back and eyes wide as she looked around in alarm. She had startled herself with her own sneeze. As I started to laugh, Luna trotted over to take a seat in front of me and flashed me this face, smiling at me and wagging her tail encouragingly. I could feel the joy radiating off of her in response to my laughter, as well as a hint of pride. She had accomplished her goal for the day—she had cheered me up. I pulled out my phone and snapped this one single photo to add to my massive collection of images of my dear friend, to remind myself that there is always a reason to smile. I wish I could detail some elaborate process behind capturing this shot, but there isn’t one beyond bumping the contrast a bit. It was effortlessly beautiful from the second I snapped it, but perhaps that is just because Luna’s beautiful soul needs no fancy filters or technique to portray.

Despite the thousands of photos I have of Luna, a collection which inevitably grows larger nearly every day, this is by far one of my favorites. It makes me happy each time I look at it, filling my heart with a comforted warmth of knowing that I have such an amazing companion by my side—and because of that, I know I will always have a reason to follow her lead and strive to take on every situation with a smile.