Dear Dakota,
I have dreaded this day all month, and I have dreaded this month all year. December has never been high on my list of faves, and you certainly sealed that opinion when you charged off over the bridge in December. It has now been two years since you raced on without us. (There is a bridge, isn’t there? Please for the love of all that’s holy tell me that there is.)
I miss you.
You got the last laugh, DD. It actually didn’t take me long to realize that, even as dense as I can be. For 10 years you listened to me tell people that you were not the dog of my heart (oh no), you were the pity pup–the one we took home because we couldn’t bear to drive by and leave it in the road. After all, once someone holds you in their lap in a dirty ditch and cries over you, how can they possibly leave you? A pity pup for sure. But a heart dog? No, you’d not ever be my heart dog.
And then you were.
And so you laugh. I’m pretty sure of that. But the gentleman jerk that you were probably only chuckles a tad. You were never one to rub anything in too hard. You were the forgiver, the peacemaker (unless it was a strange dog, of course), the snuggler, the shy and sly willing-to-come-last devotee. You were my satellite, and I was your sun. You put me at your center, a place I knew full well that you put me, but a place I knew I really did not deserve to be.
And all the while, you self-consciously and gently led, and led, and led some more. And I got less stupid.
Buddy boy, let me tell you what I’ve learned: You were the master and I was the grasshopper. Well played, my friend. Well played.
Love,
Your Woman
