The dog is home!

It's a great Easter story: Dog gets lost on Good Friday and returns home on Easter Monday.
I had written the previous post about losing Badger on Sunday evening. I still had hope, though not much. I mean, after all: three days, two snowstorms, a dog who's fourteen years old, and too many coyotes in the mountains to count.
Any remaining hope was dashed Monday morning, when I woke to find yet more snow had fallen. It was really hard to get the image out of my head of good ol' Badger pulled down by a pack of coyotes, bites taken out of him at will until he died in the snow.
Anna called first thing in the morning to ask.
"Did he come home in the night, Dad?" She quietly asked.
"No, honey, he didn't. Maybe today he'll show up." I said, trying to be positive.
"It looks like it snowed a bunch more up there..."
"No, just a skiff, really." I lied.

And then, ten minutes later, she calls again. Frantic on the phone.
"Dad! Dad! Badger's here! He's down here!"
My first reaction was anger. I could only think that Anna was playing some kind of cruel prank on me.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I opened the front door to go to school and Badger was sitting here on the front step.
So, for those of you know don't know, my wife and I are split up and the kids are part time with her and part time with me. Leigh's house is down in town and somehow the dog made it out of the mountains, all the way down to town, and found her house. Yes, Badger's been to that house before, but how he would be able to find his way there, miles over terrain he's never been on, is not much short of miraculous.
I'm hesitant to use the word miracle, but no others really fit. And, why not really? There's all kids of things that happen every day around us that are miracles, really. We just get used to them: sunsets, one's heartbeat, love despite all odds, the never-ending energy of children. And Badger--an old, tired, but needed, dog reminding us of what Easter is all about.