I have written of my son's dog. She has been staying at my house during the days while my son is at work. This evening, just before he arrived home I went out in the yard to call her to eat. She just lay there looking tired. I actually went and got her food and fed it to her with a big spoon. She ate, licked my hand, but still refused to come in the house. She has been so weak, since her surgery that I hated to force her. My temptation was to bribe her with ice cream, but she had already eaten and that was a task, so I left her lying on the lawn.

I went up to my office and was making a phone call when my son came in. He looked like he was seeking the dog, so I told him that she was lying on the lawn in front of my workshop.

"No," he muttered, "she's gone".

For a brief moment, I thought that I had left the gate open and she had wandered, but then I realized that he meant that she had died. I just just fed her a few minutes ag and it was hard to believe, but he led me outside, and she had crawled up to the gate, stretched out, and died. She was not pitiful, but stretched out in a dignified way that was typical of her. We took her home and laid her to rest under a gardenia bush. My cheeks were wet when we finished, and my son and I hugged each other because we both loved her deeply.

I have been sitting here trying in futility to get some work done, but my heart isn't in it. For two or three of her 10 or 12 years she was MY dog while my son was training and deploying and things like that. We ran together (well, jogged) for twenty or thirty minutes every evening, and almost every morning. She won't jog again, and I am not up to that very much either. It was while jogging with her I got a pain in my right arm that came back three days in a row and led to my quadruple bypass. In a sense she saved my life. I wish I could have returned the favor.