Athena,
Tomorrow will make a week since that night, a week since we’ve been apart; our longest separation in years. I still hear you sometimes at night patrolling the apartment’s nooks and crannies and exhaling that long sigh of collapse as you settle back in for sleep. I still wake up an hour and a half earlier than I have to, my body ready for our walk. It’s been nice days for walks lately, chilly but sunny and not so bitter as our last few months have been. I miss watching the sun rise and the world wake up with you every morning, with your breath whirling up and around us in a cloud and your eager smile and bright eyes that would look up at me, so, so happy. I miss having to stop every 10 minutes so you could roll in the grass and pause to have a belly rub. “Geez, Athena,” I’d grouse every time, but I loved it and I know you knew that.
I’ve been thinking about what you were like as a puppy. People have been contacting me with some of their favorite memories, you meant so much to so many people. The very first time I met you, how you walked around the corner, straight to me, like you were choosing me, and licked my nose just once. I think of you with blue ribbons in your hair at the high school with the crowds watching games. I miss playing hide and seek with you and the way you’d shove your babies into my face until I’d give in and play. I miss the way you’d always know in the mornings if I was pretending to be asleep and you’d crawl up on your belly, only the swishing of your tail giving you way, until you lunged forward and stole kisses, one at a time, until I couldn’t help but laugh. And when I’d open my eyes you were laughing too.
I miss coming home to you after work and the feel of your head pressing into my shoulder. I miss your smell and how warm you were all the time. I hate how quiet the house is now even though you never really said much.
I was thinking today of how much you loved me, and I know you did, maybe even more than I love you, and how you loved to lick. How many kisses did I receive from you in 10 years? Millions. Billions. But sometimes you’d sit back and look at me, really study me for a minute, and then give a lick slow and purposeful and hard, and you really meant those.
God, I really miss you, Athena. I can still feel your weight in my lap from that last ride and if I close my eyes I can picture that look in your eyes you’d get and the feel of your fur and your smell. Thank you for choosing me. I’m sorry you had a rough go of it; I’m sorry for your arthritic hips and bum knee and way you had to drag your back foot. I’m sorry you got cancer and it took you so quickly and I couldn’t save you.
I’ve had a bit of a crisis of faith the last few years, but one thing I do know is that if there is a heaven, no one deserves to be there more than you. I like to think of you there, finally able to run and jump like the other dogs and show them what you’re really made of. I hope I get to meet you there one day. I picture our favorite park in Denver. It’s warm but dry, the heat coming directly from the sun and crinkling on our skin, the kind of heat that put a little pep in your arthritic step. The sun is just starting to set and the mountains are all shades of purple and dark blue and the sky takes my breath away as always. The other dogs are barking and splashing in the creek, kicking up dust and gifting everything a coat of red. And I go around that bend, up the hill where you liked to watch the horses and chase the birds, and there you are waiting for me. I’d like, more than anything at this moment, to get to walk in that tall grass again with you and feel in our own world.
I miss you and I love you, Athena.