This is Peanut Butter Brickle. Do you like to tell stories? I sure do. And I know that my Gandpa also tells lots of stories. I’ve heard them once or twice and twice again. They never get old to me.

But we get old. Older. Wiser, if we are fortunate. And when I was thinking of Digby Pancake the other day, I remembered something. I remembered The Day Of Digby’s Great Escape. It happened ten years ago. In some ways, it seems like yesterday. I remember everything I thought and everything that I felt. Do you have a story like that?

On The Day Of Digby’s Great Escape, it was an ordinary morning in that Florida place. The sun was out and as usual, we took a ride with Girl Person to go hiking. Digby sure did love the woods then.

And he also loved escaping out of his harness. There was no harness that could stand up to Digby’s willpower and might when he backed up and wiggled out.

On this particular morning, Digby had a lot of energy. He could hike for hours and miles and hours and miles more. But Girl Person had somewhere she needed to be. And so we couldn’t hike as long as possible. As we made the turn to go back to the car, Digby protested. He wanted to hike longer. And he sure didn’t want to go back the same way. And in the blink of an eye, he wiggled out of his harness. And he was gone. Gone. Gone.

Now, Girl Person is not the calm and collected type. In fact, she panics. And this was definitely no exception. She screamed. She yelled. She screamed some more. She screamed so loud that she was sure the police would come. But there we were in the woods with no one around. No one.

And as she screamed, I tried to break free too. I wanted to help. And if she would have let me, I could have brought Digby back. But back then, she didn’t know my crime solving abilities.

And this went on for hours. Screaming. Yelling. Running in the bushes. She called everyone she knew and finally got Boy Person on the phone who rushed right over. But first, he had to find us in the woods. Which wasn’t hard with all the screaming.

Boy Person as usual, came to save the day. And he did. Digby was howling and after something and on the trail of everything. All Boy Person knew to do was wait until he crossed his path. And finally he did. Digby never saw any of us. He didn’t hear any of us. He was an escaped foxhound doing what he did best. And so he was surprised when Boy Person jumped on top of him and nabbed him. This was The Day Of Digby’s Great Escape.

And although we were all exhausted and scratched and crying, there he was. So proud of his hunt. He was so fulfilled. Happy to be a dog. Happy to be Digby.

As Boy Person carried him back to the car because he wasn’t taking any chances, Girl Person cried again. How everything can change in a second. The ones we love can be gone in a second. And when we got home, we all took a nap. For many hours.

And I’m not sure how long it was. But I know we had pancakes for dinner.

When someone we love decides to live their lives different than what we are comfortable with, do we judge them? Or do we let them be free? Life is dangerous. But so is not listening to our hearts. Live like you just broke out of your harness. Live Like Digby.

–Peanut Butter Brickle