I emailed this to my husband, figuring he’d be the most likely to ‘get it.’ He didn’t bother to respond, which is kind of our marriage in a nutshell.

We found out abruptly in June, 2022, that our last dog, Andy, had an advanced case of an aggressive cancer. We gave him one last day that (we hope) was great, and took him the next afternoon for his last vet visit.

The sweet boy wagged his tail ’til the very end.

His last morning, we went for a walk in our neighborhood park, Royal and Annie Smith Park. I’ve been back to there, but only sort of. Our neighbors’ dog, Polly, stayed with us for a week while they were on vacation, and I drove her to that park to start our walks through the neighborhood (whole other story), but we didn’t walk through the park.

I’m not sure I can walk through the park again. It would be hard enough just being there, with every single spot reminding me of all the times I walked him there. Just walking there would be difficult enough, but come time to leave….

 

But then, when we got back to where we parked, he stopped. For the first time ever, he stopped and looked back at the park. I wish I had captured the exact moment, but only got the seconds after it. He turned back to face the park and stood there briefly, just looking at it.