Thunder Dog - Michael Hingson [43]
Then comes the cloud.
A monstrous dust cloud three hundred feet high roars at us, enveloping us in a thick, toxic blanket of smoke, gases, vapors, and pulverized concrete dust. The cloud moves too fast and we cannot get away. We’re blasted with sand and gravel.
My body tenses up but there is nothing else to do but inhale. The dust and debris fill my throat and my lungs. I am drowning, trying to breathe through dirt. The dust is so thick I can feel it going down my throat every time I take a breath. I feel like I’m dying, the dust filling up my body and choking the life out of me.
Somehow I hang on to Roselle’s harness and we keep moving. Roselle is right alongside, guiding perfectly. She never stops.
Guide dogs are specially bred and trained to focus. When they are first received from the puppy raisers and brought back to the Guide Dogs for the Blind school for training with a certified guide dog instructor, each dog is given a temperament assessment during which the instructors note the dog’s reaction to different situations such as run-ins with other dogs and cats, exposure to food, noise, and other circumstances likely to produce anxiety in the average dog. Fifty percent of the puppies wash out. Dogs who maintain concentration and focus move forward in the training; they have the potential to do well in the intensive months-long course of guide dog training.
Roselle passed that test back when she was a puppy, demonstrating the intelligence and steadfastness I need now. Enveloped in the cloud, she continues to work and to guide even though her eyes, nose, and mouth are full of dust and debris too. Roselle’s guide dog training could never have prepared her for anything like this, but she is brave and she does not quit; instead, she uses whatever senses she can muster to watch out for me.
Whatever happens, whether we live or whether we die, we are in this together. If we don’t make it out alive, I hope we stay together, my hand on Roselle’s harness. I will never let go.
In tough times one of my favorite biblical passages is Psalm 23, and the older I get, the more I realize that life isn’t just about green pastures and still water. Just like in the psalm, life also includes hot, dusty roads; deserts; enemies; and sometimes, fire.
Psalm 23
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters.
He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil;
For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days of my life;
And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
My dad taught me to love God. Not only did we spend a lot of time over the years working together on electronics, math, scouting, and doing ham radio but we also talked about bigger things like: Who created the universe? Why are we here? Who is in control? What is the purpose of life? I could bring just about any question to my dad and he was willing to talk to me about it. In a lot of ways, we were kindred spirits.
My father did a lot of reading on Christianity, and he read to me often. When I was in fourth grade, I came home from school one day to find several big boxes waiting for me. Inside was a Braille Bible, King James Version, in eighteen large volumes. It takes up almost five feet of shelf space and still occupies prime real estate in my home office.
My mother was Jewish, and her ideas about religion tended to be wrapped up in Jewish holidays and challah and chicken soup with delicious matzo balls. She never attended synagogue, but she did go to church with