Always In My Thoughts

Dear Sally,

I entered this photograph of you in a contest today. I like how the light makes your beautiful, kind brown eyes glow so warmly. I don’t like how it makes the tears roll down my cheeks each time I look at it.

It’s been two months since you left us, and I still ache for you every day. I miss you so much. The screen door doesn’t get the vigorous exercise it did when you were here demanding to be let out so you could come in again. My knees long for your insistent little paws asking to be picked up so you could share the chair with me. Packages and mail make their way here in silence now, instead of being welcomed by a barrage of alert, sharp, high-pitched barking. The cobwebs under the deck resent not being put to use as chic canine chapeaux since you stopped inspecting them. There’s a cheeky little squirrel with a pitiful excuse for a tail who now makes its rounds in the garden because you’re not here to police the borders. BB is sad and lonely. He doesn’t know what to do with his time without you here to boss him around. The carpets miss being decorated with wads of fluff and the squeakers you so skillfully removed from your toys. It still feels weird to be able to turn over in bed without worrying I might disturb your canine slumbers, and I have to wake myself up these days without the aid of your cold, wet nose poking me gently in the face. The grass has grown back over your grave, but I still say hello to you when I pass by each day. I don’t think I’ll ever, ever stop wishing you were still here by my side.