She loves me

She loved me. When I was small and my wee stayed to the paper. When I was rumpled skin and floppy big paws and big eyes looking up and waiting for her hands to find me, scooping me up and bringing me into her. And we were happy, so happy, so very, very happy. I was so happy to see her and danced my circles so she'd know how much I wanted nothing more than for her to hold me. I'd wrap, wiggle, wiggle and wrap my growing body with my bestest happy dance, slumping and kerplumping into her warm parts just like she liked me to. She was there and I was there, and we were there together, and it was perfect. Oh, how she loved me! We spent all our time together, playing inside, outside, up, down, going round and round. And she petted me and called me good girl when I made poops, and sometimes when I weed in her front yard or the neighbor's, and I was the best girl. For her, I really was! And she scratched me behind my ears, and it was heaven. I aowooo my joy! And she aowoooed hers too.

She loved me. When I brought her trinkets, feathery morsels I snapped just so and deposited with grace at her doorstep, my hairy tail wagging flag-like in the autumn air to show my love. When I gave her by best licks, my cheesy peanut butter breath perfectly hot and sticky with slivers of bark and peat and drool. When I joined her sliding down the ice coated slopes, me at the front, at the very front, paws perched at the top cuz I was Captain of our slide, and I'd point and guide our journey, in control the whole time, risking everything to bite the wind and catch it in my jowls. When she'd howl and laugh and bumble and tumble with joy, tipping this way and that, toppling into the sloshy slippy slide, careening and at last slowing to a stop atop her great white pond, frozen beast who swallowed my best branches whole.

She loved me. When I curled and twirled, circled and bumped, slid and landed, thumping slowly, ever so sneakily down, into her wonderful me-sized lap to watch our favorite shows. When we'd blow our wet noses when the bad man tried to run away and I galloped and barked my best 411 into her face until she understood whodunit! When I slept beside her every night just feet away from that pile of blankets and toys she made for the floor to keep the floor warm. When I made space for her in my bed and left her some of the covers and kept our pillow warm all night and shared my knowing of the times so that, first thing I could be like now's good and now's good and hey, you up? Thought so! Wanna go outside?

She loved me. Even when I did nothing at all. When I laid beside her, my jaw comforting her thigh, my eyes watchful as the moon, giving her every morsel of myself, because she felt so sad against my noggin. When I understood her sorrow and her heartbreak when he stopped stopping by to see me with his t-bone bones, just for me. When she knew I'd never leave her because my love is for her, and for her only. When I brought her back to sort of okay with our long walks by the bay, when she talked and I'd listen --until I saw squirrels and then she'd understand duty calls-- but then I'd be right back at her side, my best attempts at squirrel hunting thwarted (she never made me feel bad about myself despite my routine failures in the matter). Then I'd lead her down the treelined path and gently bring her somewhere new, to shake off the cobwebs and give her new perspective. Me at my best, I know that now, nudging her toward her own best good girl life.

She loved me. When I couldn't figure out the stairs. And my joints all ached from something. When I had a harder time of waiting for her to make it home to me. I tried to wait. I tried so hard. But I couldn't always hold it. But she told me so, that I was still her very best good girl. And she told me, more than once, about how very much she loves me. So I went with her, to the beach, and to the mountains, and all of my favorite places. She bought me ice cream and a rawhide bone and a squeaky little mouse (who I ate without delay, because, um, mouse), and she laid beside me in the corner of her cozy couch -- yes, the one with my favorite goose flavored pillow -- and listened to me tell her all about the squirrels' super secret mission to destroy the world and how I planned the counteroffensive, and that I would get right on it, maybe, maybe in the morning, when the light was soft and new. She loved me even when I drifted off to sleep that one last time, soft as cotton. When I stilled, knowing. Truly knowing...

She loves me.

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Copyright © 05/11/2024 by Christy Munson. All rights reserved.

Author's Notes; Written for Belle's, Inside the Animal's Mind [an unofficial challenge]