My sister called this morning to tell me her beloved dog had inexplicably died. “Dave” was a noble German Shepherd, only eight years old. Gone too soon. Was it the Georgia heat? A heart attack? Or exocrine pancreatic insufficiency? Autopsy prohibitively costly, he will be cremated and returned to his family in a dear wooden box, to join three beloved “pets” on a shelf. Hardly pets. Love demands room to bloom, grow, and be received—hence their two additional rescue dogs and a cat named “Little Bit” to love. What the world needs now. . .

I recently returned from a short trip to our daughter and son-in-law, 1,200 miles away. A needful thing in ambiguous times. Our son and his family live 800 miles away from us in the opposite direction. Wyoming, specified “frontier” by the government, remains home. My husband and I appreciate our children’s daily calls or texts—if on occasion their work interferes. My daughter says she knows few folks who are as close to their parents. Is it the sheer distance? I know of families in the same area who ignore one another. Ours is perhaps the paradox of concentrated affection and need for connection despite the great absences and distances in our lives.

My husband and I have chosen to live “away” as it were these last near-forty years, satisfying our rustic purposes, while our children’s careers and lives continue to require major infrastructure, like nearby airports, medical facilities, shopping malls, cultural opportunities, and all the means to suggest “civilization.” The cup of tea analogy. By contrast, eight miles away, snuggled in a river valley, our nearby small town of 319 with its K-12 school adequately prepared them for university and post-graduate work. It was, and still is a look for the helpers, and it takes a village kind of place. It did not hurt that their father was the school administrator during their matriculation.

My sister will grieve her painful loss. She will peruse her phone for photographs of “Dave” and choose a special one to frame as the terrible hurt returns in waves at unexpected times. The price of loving. Our absent loves take up presence in our hearts and the great task is to keep them circulating, like warm blood in our bodies. As Hal David wrote, What the world needs now, is love, sweet love.