No one licked me at breakfast this morning

There's no sound in the kitchen.

No panting.
No licking.
No whining.
No barking.
No farting.
No drooling.
No bad smells.
No garbage strewn on the floor.
No puddles for me to step in.
No pleading eyes.
No moaning sighs.


No furry, warm life.

Ruby is gone.

The vet came on Saturday afternoon. It was a beautiful day. Painfully beautiful. Ruby died with the faintest end -of- summer breeze blowing across those magnificent wash-cloth ears of hers and all four of us touching her.

She was completely peaceful.

Trusting.
Relaxed.
Yielding.
Loving.

And she went away.

I've stood at the stove and warmed my milk for coffee.
No warm fur surrounded my bare feet.
I have stood at the sink, washing up the dishes from the night before. No one licked my ankles.
I've been to the bathroom three times. No one followed me or pushed the door open with their nosey nose.
I've left the house and come back. No hard head pushed against my shins and snuffled in absolute joy at my return. 

I have cried at the thought of my dog, outside all night, alone, for the first time in her life.


"But it's so cold out there," I blubbered into Ian's shirt before I went to bed.



"It doesn't feel right that she's outside."


"She's not there anymore, Betsy," he said. "She can't feel the cold."

The girls painted these likenesses of Ruby on blocks of wood. Esther's is below. She did it first. Isla saw what she was doing and copied her. Esther helped her with the eyes. I love these paintings. And, somehow, they are easier to look at than photographs.

For now. 

Devotion

The heart can think of no devotion
Greater than being shore to ocean -
Holding the curve of one position,
Counting an endless repetition.

Robert Frost

No words

I have been so determined to get back here and have something worthwhile to say.

 It's not that I have nothing to tell, it's that the the stories are stuck in my throat. Or is it that they are stuck in the moderating room, or have been left on the cutting room floor by a merciless editor?

Life has got me in a choke hold. One day I've got the tiger by it's tail. The next that tiger is swinging me by my Adam's apple.

Okay, that's weird.

One thing I'm sure of, I feel nothing, remotely, like the tranquil perfection depicted in this photograph I took at the lake the other morning.

As I gazed upon it, in awe, and snapped a photo of it, I was sharing, basking in the aura of peace that oozed out of ever molecule of stillness  around me. But now that I've pried myself out of that lazy, awe-struck limbo and back into the real world of PTA e-mails talking about First Day of School celebrations,  late bills and overdue calls to the vet,.....not so much.