Every minute.  Every day.
Triggers.

The triggers “that drop like trapdoors,” throw me out of my “safe, sane world.”  But, they do not always drop me into a dark desolate place.

More often than not, they snowball. Like rolling snow for a snowman, the triggers grow. One memory blends into the next.

Today, I held Faith’s head in my hands. She was upset because of the storm.

When I called Dwight to tell him Faith, a beautiful Berner, was coming home with me, he said, “Don’t do it.  It will break your heart. They don’t live long enough.”

I remembered Billy Devane telling us about when he picked up the Berner puppy Dwight sent by airplane to LAX. “I could’ve sold 100 of them,” said Bill.

Then, I thought about my first morning at Sundance. I woke up to Shiggy, Briant’s Alaskan Malamute. At that time, 23-years-old, I did not know much about dogs and thought the creature looking into my eyes as I bolted upright in bed was a wolf.  It was just Shiggy.  He was afraid of the storm. After that, any time there was thunder or lightning, Shiggy pushed open our front door and padded downstairs to the shower in the basement.

In my mind, I see the gouge Tank, Dwight’s favorite Berner, made in the table when he helped himself to the pot roast. Dwight was so upset when his former brother-in-law filled in the scratch.

Triggers.

They snowball.