7

It's been 7 months today. 

And you were mine for 7 years. 

Even your name rhymes with 7.

7 is a pretty special number to me, you know. But I'd have much preferred 70 years.  Or even just 14. Twice what we got.

I miss you daily, but most keenly on those markers of time. 

You are the shadow dog that I carry in my heart as I walk alongside Aidan every morning. 

I wish he might have known you. You two would have had such fun, especially with the ball in those crunchy leaves. And bounding through the snow. 

I wish, I wish.

Katy there behind you didn't get this kind of mourning, but I can't feel guilty about that. She was ours from puppyhood to old age, and the gradual decline helped us see her off with tears but acceptance, a sense of a whole life, well lived.

I still can't accept your loss as anything but a cruel twist. 

I miss you, almost viciously, if that's a thing. 

I speak your name intentionally and often, as if to summon you back. 

Amber's youngest loved when you would come to visit. Aidan got to meet him a couple of weeks ago and Andrew kept saying "Evan died," as if he was trying to wrap his mind around it by repeating it as a fact. It was comforting to hear your name spoken aloud.  Remembered. Lost.

Come back to me, Evan.

Eons of cultures have marked this day as the beginning of winter, the festival of the dead, the shortest distance between the living and the lost.

And you do come back, as best you can.

But it's not enough. I'm too greedy for the light in your eyes, the wiggle of your ears, and the sway of your tail.  The ones that were yours, and yours alone. That made you the exquisitely unique soul that intertwined with mine. 

I will remember you, always.  I will miss you, forever. I will love you for longer, sweet spirit. 

edited to add . . .

as I was finishing up this post and crying and staring out the window, dozens of these little sparrows flew en masse into the branches of my tree and flitted about for a long while. I've never seen them in this tree before, and now they've all disappeared again.