Tears formed as I swept up the crumbs from under the dining room table, left from last night’s family dinner.
Emotions are a fickle thing. There's no knowing when some commonplace act will trigger a memory. With the end of the Christmas holidays, and the sudden quiet of the house, melancholy was close, as were sudden memories of my wee white dog, Poh.
The floorboards by this part of the room are worn grey, made so by Poh’s water dish. In hindsight, it wasn’t the best place for his dinner bowls and mat, but he was a social eater so he needed to be by my chair or he wouldn’t eat his meals.
A plastic placemat, yellow sunflowers on it, made his place at the “table.” His dog bowl, also plastic, also yellow, was his place setting.
More often than not, I’d hit his water bowl with my foot when I rose from my place at the table, spilling the water on the floor and trapping it under his plastic mat. With time, and a too-hurried cleanup, the hardwood greyed and weathered as the water sunk into the floor. The wood planks, milled from maple and left natural in colour but only lightly varnished, were no match for repeated spills.
After I knocked the bowl, I’d curse both the spill and the dog, stress and the busy-ness of parenting robbing me of patience and perspective… but now, nearly five years later, I’d love to have him here, getting underfoot while I’m cooking in the kitchen, brown eyes tracking my movements, ever hopeful that something would drop and he’d cage a yummy snack.
Memories, poignant and still sharp, pierce my heart and knot up my throat. Grief, and love… powerful like waves, remind me how much I loved, and still love, this cantankerous little dog.
It’s true: despite the passage of time, we never forget the ones we love.
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