Gracie’s Echo

The scent of fresh cut grass
lingers in the air.
Leaves detach from trees
and float slowly, slowly down ot the lawn,
over the swing set and across the tree house.

Garrett rakes the brown crinkly leaves
into a pile on the street.
A green dog toy flies through the air,
glowing in the evening light.
It lands with a plop and a swish.

One white fluff chases after the ball.
It’s fuzzy hair ruffles as the dog jumps
using its tiny legs with an enormous force.
She falls.
The dog and the toy disappear among the leaves.

Suddenly, she emerges
bouncing with energy and pride at her accomplishment.
She sprints up the hill
with the ball in her mouth and drops it at my feet.
Her barks echo in my ears with the unspoken question:
Won’t you throw it again?

I reach down to grab it;
her tail moves like a high-speed windshield wiper.

  *

The doorbell rings.
The dog leaps from the couch and skids to a stop by the door.
She is a tiny, barking sun.
Her eager barks ring throughout the hallway.

My mom opens the door;
she leans down to pet the dog.
The dogs white belly shows as she rolls over to receive more lovins.
Then she skids around the corners once more,
like a Mario Kart character trapped in a dog’s body,
and stops on the rug.
She then resumes her intense game of tug-of-war
as if it never stopped.

  *

She laboriously strains to stand from her bed.
her tail droops behind her as she walks.
Cataracts cloud her eyes like a blurry filter
obscuring a beautiful picture.
The joints in her legs no longer like to bounce or skid or run.

She ambles to the living room
and sits.
Barks fill the air once more,
although these are not happy barks.
These are
not
leaf-pile-jumping, doorbell-running barks.
No.
These barks pierce my heart
worse than my ears.

They occur so frequently it is now
a heartbreaking white noise in my life.

These barks speak of pain.
A pain that stays until she falls asleep.
An aching that causes her head to droop, and her appetite to diminish.

I wish to hold her.
I wish to see her jump in a leaf pile
once more,
to enjoy getting her belly rubbed
once more,
to be my friend
once more.

We watched it happening throughout the years,
yet I have been blind.
Not anymore.
She sits, staring at the present in front of her.
She doesn’t tear it apart like before,
just looks.
She doesn’t play with the toy like before,
just whines.
She isn’t the same dog as before,
just an echo.

The hardest part isn’t saying goodbye,
it’s knowing she’s been gone for a long time.