Anniversary

 


One year ago today, I woke up in Kentucky. I stretched and had a good run and sniff around with Pearl, my grandma. Then Lane and Ricki, my humans, got into the truck and invited me to come along; I said a quick goodbye to grandma and hopped in.
Four hours later, we had driven through two states and were on the other side of the Appalachians. I wondered a little but kept busy with new smells as we drove through Tennessee and into Abingdon, Virginia. We pulled into the parking lot of a big old house and I stood up with my front paws on the center console to see better; Ricki clipped a leash to my collar and we got out of the car. Standing there were two people I vaguely recognized--one was short and one was tall and they both had brown hair, and they seemed excited to see us.
That was the day I came to live in the city with mother and father. On the drive back, we stopped to see father's grandmother and uncle in Roanoke. Like me, his grandmother grew up on a farm. She and Don fed me a lot of chicken. I like them very much.

Mother and father wondered out loud the other day whether I miss my grandmother Pearl. Oh, yes. I regret that I didn't say a true goodbye--but then, I didn't know that I was leaving for good. She has Reuben and Sadie and other dog friends in Illinois, and I have Cayda and a wonderful extended human family. I'm a dog; I live in the present and don't hold on to the past.
But every time I stalk a squirrel, or climb a tree, or run through the woods, I think of her. I imagine her running beside me and barking, and it is so real that I know she is thinking of me too.



My grandma