The immortal Elves of Tolkien’s Middle Earth watched men and women age, wrinkle, grow grey, and die, while the Elves themselves did not age. They witnessed generation after generation grow from bright-eyed babies to white bones in a tomb.1 So, too, do we. We are cursed to watch our dogs grow from puppies to grey-beards and from nails on oak floorboards to silence. I believe in my bones our divine mutts are saying to us, Fool—why do you not learn from the grey-hairs around my wet and blackened nose?