My husband, Mike, and I live in a small rustic cabin above a flowing creek framed by California redwoods. An idyllic setting, but I wasn’t feeling at peace, not that winter. It had been unusually long and rainy. I’d been laid up with an injured hip. Mike traveled a lot for work so most of the time I was in the cabin alone with only my devoted dog, Bear, for company.
Now it was March and I was tired of being cooped up, weary of wondering if my hiking days were over. I’d prayed for healing, but despite months of grueling physical therapy, I still wasn’t fully recovered.
Bear wasn’t in the best shape, either. I looked at him stretched across his soft orthopedic bed, conserving his energy for when he really needed to move. I had picked him out of a neighborhood litter 12 years earlier.
Inquisitive and energetic, he had appeared to be all Lab, like his purebred mama. But when he grew to a massive 105 pounds, I was forced to consider the possibility that his papa was a traveling man, an oversized mutt who’d managed to jump my neighbor’s tall fence.
My eager black pup had become a stately old gentleman, hard of hearing, with a silver muzzle and tender joints. Bear used to follow me everywhere and he was still watchful, but lately he’d been keeping an eye on me from his soft bed.
That March day sunshine streamed through the tall trees, warming our back deck perched high above the creek, and filtering into the cabin. The temperature, which had been lodged in the thirties and forties, shot up to 60 degrees. Warm enough for sitting outside with a good book. “What do you think, Bear?” I said. “Time to emerge from hibernation?” I felt his gaze following me as I went into the bedroom to change.
I put on a sundress and sandals and stepped out on the deck, book in hand. The deck was old and the wood was rotted in places, but Mike and I had put off repairs till summer. Carefully avoiding the trouble spots, I pulled a deck chair into the sun and sat down.
Bear must’ve been as starved for sunshine as I was because he rose and followed me outside. When I kicked off my sandals and settled in with my book, he ambled off to the front yard. I read for a while, soaking up the light and warmth.
Then the sun shifted, and I chased it. I pulled the chair to a spot near the deck railing that had always been solid and sat down. Crack! Before I could get to my feet, the planks under me gave way. The chair tipped and I crashed through the deck, the wood splintering around me.
I lunged for the railing. It just tore away. I watched, terrified, as it tumbled down the hill. Was I next?
Thump. My fall ended jarringly, painfully, with the upper third of my body above the deck, held up by broken planks digging into my armpits. My right leg, the one with the injured hip, was also still atop the deck, bent behind me in an awkward half-split, while my left leg dangled through the jagged hole.
I’m one of those people who get oddly calm and quiet in a crisis, so I hadn’t even yelled when I broke through the wood. Not that it would have done any good. Even if the rain-swollen creek hadn’t drowned out my screams, my closest neighbor lived too far away to hear.
I assessed my injuries. First, my left leg, the one dangling. I checked for feeling in my toes, then bent the knee slightly. No problems there. My right leg was a different story. The pressure on it was intense, being bent back like that, and any more twisting would probably damage my hip further. My sides and armpits were scraped and torn. My sundress had bunched up, exposing my hanging leg to the spiders that thrived in the dank dark under the deck. I shuddered. Spiders!
I took a deep breath, pressed hard with my arms and tried to get leverage to drag myself onto the deck. Nothing. My upper body wasn’t strong enough. I was trapped.
Who would rescue me? Mike was traveling and not due home for hours. My cell phone was inside. The occasional car passed on the country road out front, but how would a driver see me behind the cabin? I was alone out here. I had just one recourse. Lord, only you can hear me now. Please send help.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a black blur. Bear! He’d wandered back from the front yard. He padded onto the deck and edged as close to me as he could without falling in the hole. Then he extended his big head and licked my face.
“Aww, Bear, you sweet old dog,” I said. God must have sent him to comfort me. But Bear kept staring at me, concern all over his face. Maybe God sent him to do more, I thought, studying my dog’s thick neck. If I held onto his collar, maybe I could get Bear to pull me up enough so that I could roll onto my side and safely back onto the deck.
The problem was, Bear had never been trained to pull anything. In fact, Mike and I had taught him to stop moving and relax when he felt a tug on his collar. Could I get him to understand what I needed him to do now?
Lord, please help Bear help me.
First, I had to get my dog in front of me, otherwise I might pull him into the hole too. “Bear, come,” I said, patting the deck and coaxing him into position. I slipped my right hand under his collar and closed my fingers around it.
Using my dog’s weight to anchor me, I pushed off with my other arm and maneuvered up an inch. Then Bear relaxed his neck, making me slip back and let go.
“Let’s try again,” I said as much to myself as to my dog. I gripped his collar and slowly levered myself up again.
This time Bear caught on. He braced his legs, all 105 pounds of him rock solid. Inch by agonizing inch, I dragged myself up. His neck must have felt the strain, but Bear didn’t budge. He stood fast and mighty! One more time, I thought. I felt Bear dig in with his paws as I lurched forward and upward. I threw my upper body onto the deck and rolled.
Next thing I knew I was sprawled on the deck on my back, my face wet with tears of relief. Bear licked them away.
Gingerly I sat up. I hugged Bear close. My hero. Neither of us was as young and fit as we used to be, but God saw to it that my dog and I had the strength we needed, both in body and spirit.
“Good dog, Bear. Good dog.”
Bear wagged his tail wildly and gave me his best doggy grin, as if to say, Happy to help, like always.
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