Goodbye to my dog.

Our cuddle times are over.

For eighteen years and ten months, you have been my faithful shadow.

I try to imagine you still, there, my shadow. But all of your sounds are on mute.

The lack of you sometimes swallows the air in the room.

People do not quite understand.

I do not quite understand.

How does a furry creature who eats from the garbage and doesn’t speak Human, become the best friend a girl could have?

You are. You knew.

So where to put all this love, now?

I used to scoop you up and tell you. And now I tell the stillness.

I am glad I don’t ever have to clip your nails again. I know: you, too. The perks of this new arrangement. I also bet, like me, you’d accept a thousand nail trimmings for just one more romp together above grass through a budding spring. We don’t get to choose, do we girl.

For years, I joked with humans that your secret of long life was: the extravagance with which you were loved. But I was wrong. It was the extravagance with which you loved us. You could have given up a handful of times. Still you stayed by our side until the years entirely wore you out.

Not even Love beats Time, in this sphere.

But we tried. We sure gave Time a run for his money.

I don’t think Jesus had a dog. I am pretty sure the love for a dog would have made several parables if He had. He has one now.

I try to camp there. Picturing Yeshua as your new lap of Love, Lassie.

Let me tell you, this house has lost a piece of its soul.

It will never be the same.

I will never be the same.

I will miss you all the days I have left.

Still, as I drag that last laundry load up the stairs at the end of the day, I revert to years of habit and the words drop out, as they always have… fading into a whisper of grief: “Goodnight Girl. I love you.”