A true story.
“Can you help me…with some food?”
The query came from a Navajo woman with a cane in the Safeway supermarket parking lot in Page, AZ. I was just walking up to my rental car when she came up to me.
I thought for only a moment. “Sure. What would you like?”
“Taco Bell.”
The Taco Bell was just down the street. “I’ll take you there,” I told her. “Hop in.”
She walked around to the other side of the car while I climbed in my side. I put my Starbucks latte in the cup holder and tossed the lemon coffee cake I’d bought onto the dashboard. I had some things on the passenger seat and moved them for her. Then she climbed in, putting her cane between her legs and shut the door. She was conservatively dressed, looked clean, and didn’t appear (or smell) drunk. She had a round face with flattened features and half-opened eyelids. She looked almost Asian. I remembered that the Navajo were descended from the people who had crossed the Bering Strait into North America in prehistoric times. She looked to be in her sixties.
I started toward Taco Bell. It was 9:40 AM. “It’s not even 10 o’clock. Do you think it’s open?” I asked.
“No. I don’t think so,” she replied thoughtfully. “It’s open until 11 at night.”
“How about McDonald’s?” I suggested. “They make a good breakfast.”
“Okay.”
McDonalds was down off the mesa on Route 89, about 2 miles away. I started down the hill.
“Do you work for a hotel?” she asked me. She’d obviously seen my rack cards, which I’d be bringing to the airport the next day.
“No,” I replied. “I work for a tour company.”
“Where are you from?”
“The Phoenix area,” I told her. “Wickenburg.”
“Oh, I know Wickenburg,” she replied. “I used to live in Glendale. Peoria, El Mirage.” She thought for little while and added, “I moved there when my husband died. Now I’m just homeless.”
I steered us down the hill. Lake Powell and the Glen Canyon Dam came into view.
“Can’t they help you at the Chapter House?” I asked. It didn’t seem right that the Navajo people would let one of their own remain homeless on the streets of Page.
“No, they can’t help me.”
The conversation died as we rolled down the hill. I suspected she wasn’t telling me everything. She was too clean and well kept to be truly homeless. She must be going somewhere at night.
“Do you have family in Page?” I asked her as I made the left turn onto Route 89.
“I have a son in Salt Lake City and another one in Phoenix,” she replied.
The conversation died again. This time she revived it.
“I heard that Chinatown got wiped out.”
I made her repeat what she said; I didn’t think I’d heard it right the first time. But I had.
“Chinatown?” I repeated. There was no Chinatown within 500 miles of Page, AZ. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I heard it on the news.”
It came to me suddenly. “Oh, you mean Japan. The earthquake and tsunami.”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
By this time, McDonald’s was in sight.
“Can we go to Burger King instead?” she asked.
I saw the Burger King logo just up ahead. “Sure. You like that better?”
“Yes. They have a good deal. Two hamburgers for three dollars.”
I pulled up to the drive through at Burger King. The menu was on a board beside the talking box. “What do you want?”
“Two hamburgers,” she said. I think she was trying to save me money.
“Some orange juice to go with that?” I asked. I was thinking about getting something healthy into her.
“Yeah.”
“Anything else? Some fries?”
“No fries.” She was reading the menu board. “Maybe the sausage, egg, and biscuit,” she said suddenly.
“Okay. And two hamburgers for later?”
“Yeah.”
After what seemed like eternity, a voice came through the speaker. I ordered the sausage, egg, and biscuit breakfast meal and two hamburgers. The order taker asked if I wanted coffee or orange juice with that. I asked my companion.
“Orange juice.”
The order taker read back our order. It came to seven dollars and change. She told us to pull up to the second window.
At the window, the order taker took my money and gave us the orange juice and a straw. Then she asked us to pull up and wait in the parking lot while they made the burgers. Because it was so early, they’d have to be made special. So I pulled around to the parking lot.
While we were waiting there, I asked, “Why did you come back here from Phoenix?”
“I wanted to come back to my reservation,” she said. After a while, she added, “My mother and father live here.”
“Do they live far from Page?”
“Yes. Very far. Thirty-six miles. You go down Haul Road and then you keep going.” She added the name of the town but I didn’t catch it. Later, I found Kaibito on Route 98 36.9 miles from Page in the right general direction.
“Maybe you should go live with them for a while,” I suggested.
“I been thinking about it.”
“I think it’s a good idea,” I said honestly. I hesitated, then asked: “Do you need someone to drive you there?” I would have done it to get her off the street. My morning was wide open.
“No,” she replied. “I can hitchhike.”
I knew that hitchhiking was a popular means of transportation among Navajo people on the Reservation. I’d picked up a hitchhiker once myself, when I was driving through the Rez with some friends. She’d be okay.
The order taker came out with her food and I handed it over. I backed out of my parking space and prepared to take her back up into town.
“Can you drop me off at McDonald’s?” she asked.
McDonalds was just down the road, near the Wal-Mart. “Sure.” I drove over and made the turn. “Where? Here or near Wal-Mart?”
“Here,” she said. “By the tables.” McDonald’s had some outdoor tables in the sun. “I can sit and eat here.”
“Okay.” I drove over to the tables and stopped. For a moment, she struggled with her bag of food, orange juice, and cane. Then she managed to get the door open.
“Do you think you can help me with some money?”
I was wondering if she’d ask and was prepared. I handed her a $10 bill. “Here you go. Use it to get something good for yourself.” I still wasn’t convinced that she didn’t have a drinking problem — alcohol is a major problem on the Rez. But I couldn’t say no. I have so much; she had to ask strangers for food.
She took the money. “Thank you.”
She got out of the car, closed the door, and stood still behind it. I shifted into drive and pulled away slowly. When I’d gone around the McDonald’s to the exit, I saw her sitting at the table with her breakfast and lunch.
I drove back to my hotel, just down the road.
Two years ago, I went to a 
Picture this: Every morning, a person makes his morning coffee in a Mr. Coffee 4-cup drip coffee maker. He then pours the coffee from the little pot into the same thermal travel mug he uses every day. Although he’s made 4 “cups” (6-oz each), the thermal travel mug only fits 3 cups. He throws away the extra “cup” of coffee.
We’d been talking to people about dogs and learning about different breeds well-suited for ranches. I’d decided that something like a border collie or Australian shepherd would be a good breed. So when the newspaper mentioned a border collie/Australian shepherd mix up for adoption, we decided to take a look.
He bonded to me — probably because he’d been sitting on my lap on that car ride. This was not ideal. I’d planned to get a parrot in a month or so and Jack was supposed to be mostly my husband’s dog. So for the first few days, I began ignoring him and Mike started lavishing him with attention. After a few days of that, he was Mike’s dog, although he responded to me equally well. But when we were together, it was always Mike that he went to first. That was fine with me.
Jack sitting on the edge of the back patio, watching the road that leads down to our house, racing around to the front when Mike’s car or truck rolled down.
Jack running around on our 40 acres in northern Arizona, chasing rabbits, crawling under the shed, looking for mice and rats.
Jack hiking with us up Vulture Peak, through the Hassayampa River bed, at Granite Mountain, 
Jack riding in the back of the pickup, his head out in the slipstream as we drove around town. (He only fell out of the pickup that one time, although he did fall out of my Jeep twice.)
The decision wasn’t hard. The worst thing you can do for an animal is try to keep it alive when it’s suffering. Jack, although maybe not in pain (yet), was laboring to breathe. It was taking everything he had. He couldn’t even walk anymore. He hadn’t eaten in more than three days. His condition was deteriorating quickly. I wasn’t even sure if he’d be alive when my husband came home that night.