![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rushthatspeaks"'There's your dog, and your dog is dead. But there had to be something that made it move in the first place, didn't there?' This question forms much of the roots of the human search for meaning in the universe."-- Roger Ebert, review of Gates of Heaven.
He was a good dog, and it was not a bad death, and I'd seen him less than a week before. He left me with a lasting love of large dogs in general and Great Pyrenees in specific. He was nearly fourteen years old. We had him for much of the latter half of his life; we got him when I was in high school.
My clearest memory of him is from the year we got him, before we got our second dog to keep him company. We'd left the garage door open by mistake, and he'd wandered out without his leash on and disappeared. Mom called all the neighbors and she and Dad went out around the neighborhood looking. I stayed home in case he came back. I looked out the window after a while and there he was, just coming around the bend of the road, white fur shining in the spring sunlight, a few flower petals stuck on his ears, smiling. Coming home all by himself in his usual pleasant amble. I went out to meet him, and I scolded him, but he knew I didn't really mean it; I was too glad to see him. I didn't feel like I had to put a leash on him, or a hand on his collar. We ambled home together, in the sunlight, slowly, and he stopped to sniff a few things. I didn't object. It was probably the only afternoon he'd ever had to himself, after all, and he wandered about and then chose to come home. He was tall enough that when I was standing up I only had to put my hand down to the side, without bending my knees, and it would rest on his head. That is how I remember my dog. He is very much missed.
He was a good dog, and it was not a bad death, and I'd seen him less than a week before. He left me with a lasting love of large dogs in general and Great Pyrenees in specific. He was nearly fourteen years old. We had him for much of the latter half of his life; we got him when I was in high school.
My clearest memory of him is from the year we got him, before we got our second dog to keep him company. We'd left the garage door open by mistake, and he'd wandered out without his leash on and disappeared. Mom called all the neighbors and she and Dad went out around the neighborhood looking. I stayed home in case he came back. I looked out the window after a while and there he was, just coming around the bend of the road, white fur shining in the spring sunlight, a few flower petals stuck on his ears, smiling. Coming home all by himself in his usual pleasant amble. I went out to meet him, and I scolded him, but he knew I didn't really mean it; I was too glad to see him. I didn't feel like I had to put a leash on him, or a hand on his collar. We ambled home together, in the sunlight, slowly, and he stopped to sniff a few things. I didn't object. It was probably the only afternoon he'd ever had to himself, after all, and he wandered about and then chose to come home. He was tall enough that when I was standing up I only had to put my hand down to the side, without bending my knees, and it would rest on his head. That is how I remember my dog. He is very much missed.
