Quiet Morning

I think it really dawned on me this morning.

It's quiet.

No clicky toenails on the floor. No whining to go out, no jingle of tags on a collar.

We had Mack put down at home yesterday.

It was all too much -- the blindness and his subsequent fear made him unable to navigate the physical challenges that our house provides, and even when carried outside, he was running into the bushes he usually greeted with a morning shower instead.

I wish I had some of the good pictures we have taken of him over the years, although photographing a glossy black dog is a challenge. As he got older, his muzzle and front end grew gradually whiter, so it was easier, but his eyes got cloudier and cloudier.

The best pictures are probably in my head, though.

Him jumping impossibly high to get a tennis ball, and Sarafina's reedy three year old voice, "Good catch, Rothbart!" Even the dog didn't escape her "Swan Lake" obsession. Him dancing in impatience on the side of a lake, "Just throw the stick, already!" His quiet disdain for the children, and the long-suffering looks he used to give us. The way he sighed happily when we finally went to bed and he could come in and lie down. Kids at homeschool park day who would vie to walk him, when what he really wanted was to stay right by me, and maybe cruise for leftovers. The way he'd run inside after a bath and then scrub his muzzle all over the couch, drying his face and leaving wet marks all over, no matter how much we tried to dry him.

I'm sure more good memories will come back, although right now my view of him is colored strongly by his last year or so. The kids are doing okay, but sad.

It's just too quiet.

Fortunately, the rest of the family is due to wake up really soon. That'll stop.