sob

his ashes have sat on my dining room table for over a week now.  they are in a bag, some shiny coppery colored thing, with tissue paper covered with doggy noses and paws peeking over the edge and the bandanna he was wearing on that awful day slung casually over the twisted paper handles.  it is a small thing, it barely stands out at all if you train yourself to not see it when you walk by.

on his way home, he cried every time he passed some place we had all gone together.  he cried for the loss of a close friend, an adopted son, a responsibility he'd volunteered for and never regretted.  he cried because he knew i still cry, and even from 500 miles away, he still had a hitch in his voice when he told me about it.

yes, losing Frank, especially in this fashion, was hard on us both.

when i returned home, i knew his ashes were on the table, and i ignored them.  a small box containing the remains of a rather large part of my life seems a small and impossibly inadequate consolation.  a five pound box of fine dust is no substitute for 60 pounds of fur and flesh, of blue eyes, brindled paw, white birthmark on left hip, long black toenails, bushy butt fur and soft ear fur.  i can't be a cheerleader for an inanimate object, can't bring it with me and throw tennis balls for it, can't share water and banana chips with it.

it's just not right.

it's easier when i work.  at least on those mornings, my mind is preoccupied.  but on mornings like this one, i woke up to let him out, but there was nobody waiting to be let out or be fed. i walked through the house, past cats sleeping in his spots in the office and living room.  a gentle woolly smell seemed to follow me, but i guess that's ingrained in the walls themselves.

i opened the door slowly, half expecting to feel his nose against the back of my knee, and then closed it.  i turned around, walked to the dining room, stopped at the shiny coppery colored bag sitting on my table.  i lifted the bandanna off the handles, pushed aside the tissue paper, came face to face with the remains of my dog, my friend, my son.

atop the leather bound box was a card, a simple sample of prose about a place where dogs go to wait for their masters before going on to heaven together.  it's a place where they are restored their youth, where their friends who have gone before them play all day, where there is plenty of food and plenty of caretakers to give them hugs and treats while they wait (if there is such a place, i think i'd like to be one of those people who watch over dogs while they wait, but that's a whole different post).

beneath that card, the box was quite elegant in its simplicity.  no frills, no lock, just a chocolate brown leather covered box.  i didn't open it, just held it and let my mind swell with memories of Frank.  Frank here in Sac, then backwards in time to Frank in San Diego, in San Francisco, in Las Cruces.  I thought about all the people who knew him, who loved him at first sight.  I thought about all the times people would shy away from his wolfie stance, only to tentatively reach out and discover soft ears, gentle tongue, penetrating yet kind eyes.  anyone who had that experience with him was hooked.

oh geez, Frank.  I really miss you, especially on mornings like these.