Coco, my dog, is aging too early. He’s only 13, and his breed can generally be healthy for a lot longer than that. He’s gone deaf, now he’s blind, and since he wasn’t here while I travelled for the last month and he is having a very difficult time readjusting to his home. He’s still so smart, that is obvious, but he’s afraid. He has fallen down stairs, off of porches, run (and I mean run) straight into walls, he’s becoming almost paralyzed with fear now. It is hard to express his spirit without injury.

When my daughter Josi was very young, just 7 or 8, she read a biography of Helen Keller. After that she would pretend to be blind in various situations, even in a hotel lobby and elevator I remember, really wanting to understand what Helen’s life might have been like. She would even dream about her.

Now I find myself trying to do this with Coco, but it isn’t easy. What would it be like?