Look Up At The Stars

Suddenly, I was atop a mountain. I didn’t know how I got there. But there I was on a narrow ridge, dust kicking up beneath my feet and rocks tumbling down each side as I stepped. They plummeted into the ocean below as the dark made it hard for me to know whether I was safe.

I had the courage to lift my head, and there you were. You looked back for just a moment before trotting ahead, your hips trundling sideways like they always did. A bear cub as my guide. Confidence as my leader. Safety ahead.

You stopped, your tongue sticking out and your small snorts making music in my ears as you looked up, inviting me to do the same. So I did. Stars, more than I had every seen, glittered the sky as if the gods had thrown confetti for our own little party of two. I knew you’d keep me safe, I knew you’d bring me joy as you always did. Two moons glowed, one full, one crescent, pulling both away and towards each other at the same time. You, full and reaching the wholeness of your life, me, growing, still feeling brand new, wishing dogs and humans lifespans weren’t so tragically different.

Two moons changed to a white ceiling as my brain realized none of this was real. Well most of it wasn’t. There’s no such thing as two moons, but you being light in the darkness was every bit the truth.

I could never pick a favorite moment with you. You wrapped every day in bows and made it something to celebrate. The way you wiggled on your back, your broken one, not letting your far from perfect form destroy your flow. The way you ran circles around the house like a Nascar 500 racer and laid on my chest as the protector of my heart. Fierce in spirit and speed and surrender.

Each time I came home, whether gone for minutes, days, or months, you greeted me the same. As if I was the best thing you’d ever seen. Oh there you are, you’d say, bumbling beneath my kneeling body and catching up on all the kisses I surely missed. With each one you lapped away my pain, my fears, my doubts about this disconnecting world.

This was love. This was joy, and you never missed an opportunity to spread it.

You didn’t know, or maybe you did, but I was your eager student lucky enough to have a front row seat. But sometimes I wish I studied harder. Wished I didn’t distract myself with the mental resistance of a disgruntled student of life. Sometimes I was too worried about it to remember I had it, living, breathing, right in front of me. Living regardless of pain, breathing through damaged nostrils, making every moment an exaltation of gratitude for the opportunity to be in a body. The opportunity to love.

When you left, joy left. It was as if I remembered nothing you taught me. As if sourcing my own joy was impossible. I didn’t know how to roll on my back like you. I didn’t know how to love life like you anymore.

I searched for you every where. In memory. In regret. In guilt. In grief. In others. In the past. In anything or anyone who might offer me hints of you.

I hope you know, I would live every moment again and I’d be more patient this time. I’d realize what I had this time. I promise.

But I know you didn’t see it that way. You only knew love through those buggy eyes. You only knew we were lucky to share our lives, for however short our time may be. You only felt the excitement of me coming home, again and again and again.

The same way you sprinted when you were coming home that very first time.

It was a surprise when you came into our lives. Still reeling from the grief of our last girl, we did not know if our hearts could open to another angel in dog form. But you were eager, your soul pressing on ours until our resistance gave way to acceptance, then commitment, then readiness.

We drove hours.

We would drive days if it led us to you.

The door to your last house swung open and as if a fairy dressed in black, a buzzing bee, you flurried through table legs and under chairs to the home that was my arms. There you are, you snorted, and I scooped you to my hip- a monkey, a koala, a baby, a French bulldog, your legs wrapped around me like an infant coming back to mom. I had never fallen in love so fast, so fiercely.

SoFierce. That was your name. Sofie for short. A name I speak to remember how to live. So fiercely. How to love? So fiercely. How to move forward? So fiercely.

That is what I will take with me. Coming home. That moment that replayed and replayed and replayed. Two souls being reunited across days or lifetimes. Whether it was me walking through the door or you fluttering into my dreams. That feeling of a love so deep, time does not exist.

My favorite memory of you? It’s the one that lives and dances in my bones. The feeling that feels like lightness wiggling through my spirit. Like you coming home to my arms the first time and every time since. Like the earth sending love up through my feet and hollering out my mouth in those seconds I remember to make moments into memories. To take the present so wholly into my body that I can do nothing but vibrate with the aliveness all around me. I can do nothing but be like you.

My favorite memory is your whole life.

They say energy never dies, is only transformed. I can only hope I’ve given your ferocity a place to expand, to transcend, to continue on. I can only hope I gifted you freedom of body, but let your soul live on in this student. A student who’s eager to learn how to truly live and grateful for an answer that can be summed up in two words- so fiercely.