Today marks ten years since our parting.
Rarely does a day pass that I don’t think of you.
Your successor may be surpassing you in age, though hers was estimated by the shelter.
Sharing my life with Sassy June for this last decade has only reinforced my sense that you were a once-in-a-lifetime dog. Maybe more than a dog.
Once again, I witness a whole lifetime spanning within a brief period of my own. To go from youth to maturity and to old age.
When Snazzly first came to me, I did my best to hustle, to keep up with a Husky mix in her prime at six and-a-half years old. But times were different for her and me. She was an escape artist and a flight risk, and every outdoor venture was at the end of a leash. Sometimes attached to a bicycle, sometimes pulling me over on my face on the Hok skis.
I longed for those leisurely strolls with you. Leash-free. Of course I romanticize everything, and dismiss the time you were picked up and spent the night in Dog Jail for raiding the harem at the Akita farm in Rosenburg. I forget the fights with Betsy’s dogs. The one that injured her Chihuahua. The one where the boxer tore the 17-stitch hole in your belly.
For years I dreamed of the days when she would grow older and slow down.
Be careful what you wish for.
Now at sixteen and-a-half, she’s begun to suffer from arthritis. Our walks are slower now.
I wished for the days she would slow down, and now I wish she wasn’t forced to.
I thought of you all day. Went out to kiss the stone that marks your grave. I was surprised that the stone had been warmed by the sun, and in the cool morning air they welcomed ten kisses. One for each year.
I sat a sunset vigil on July 22, 2016. I planned to do the same today, but cloud cover caused me to let the sunset hour arrive unnoticed. I had time only to address you, and to think of this post.
I consider the ways in which I might have projected the intensity or the value of our love from my poet’s mind, during a time in my life when I needed just such a friend. Loyal. Reticent. All-forgiving.
Alas, it doesn’t matter how our days would be defined. After a decade, I can clearly see that ours was a special friendship that I will cherish always, and recall often.
Melancholy will not roll back time to the days when we were young and carefree.
But the memories of our days together, and all we shared, will continue to warm my heart for many years to come.
Until we meet again,
Love,
Paz
Chow Dog Zen 