Malade comme un chien

exp. – sick as a dog.

To follow up on my previous post, I was premature in celebrating my recuperation. In fact, it took several more days and a full series of antibiotics to do the trick. It’s no wonder that everyone in the apartment got so sick given how hot it is. Well actually I was the only one who got sick, but no wonder!

At first I thought the raspy, throaty voice from endless hacking was sexy. That is until I feared I might have done irreparable damage to my vocal chords losing the ability to ever speak properly again. It was during this time that I realized the expression “sick as a dog” is a bit of misnomer. “Sick as a New Yorker in December” maybe, but my dog is never sick.

One of my favorite sayings is “a faithful friend is the medicine of life.” It’s true that friends always have a way of making us feel better. As holiday cards start to stream in, I realize how lucky I am to have so many friends because I also believe that while friends we have many, good friends we have but a few. Most of us who have entered the social networking game can count upwards of a hundred friends easily – some have even upwards of a thousand, but how many of these friends are really that close to us?

Networking in general has been around since the Dawn of time. Technology has just made it easier. Making new friends, however, is just as complex as it’s always been. Recently, a woman in our building was widowed. She had been very gracious with us regarding a question we had about work she had done on her apartment that we were thinking about doing on ours. So I foolishly felt a tiny connection for that reason. When her husband passed away after a long illness, I reached out with a note of condolence offering my company should she want to get together for coffee, tea, a chat.

She never responded and now when I see her in the building, I feel awkward like she wishes I would go away. At first I felt like an idiot for reaching out to a total stranger who clearly already had a lifetime of friends, not to mention family, to see her through her grieving. It wasn’t until a good friend of mine pointed out though that what I had done came from the right place and that I shouldn’t feel bad about trying to do a nice thing. That’s what friends are for, making us feel better no matter what the circumstance.

Dogs also have an ability to make us feel better because they never judge. They also can intuit when we’re under the weather or just under a cloud. “Man’s best friend” indeed and what more faithful friend than a dog. So here’s to dogs and friends, not necessarily in that order – may the holiday season be as kind to all of you as you all continue to be to each other.