pictures

here is a happy series of him in our garden three years ago, showing his energy and delight in life and in my love (and in fresh vegetables).



the pictures featuring him trail off once the boy comes into the spotlight, and most of the ones over the past year tell the story of what how we treated him - he appears only in the backgrounds with no focus on him, and mostly he is either alone on his bed or waiting at the foot of the action to be noticed. these are very painful for me.



when the boy sees the photos of him on the computer, he smiles and reaches to the screen, saying "touch" and "tickle." "tickle" is what he used to say when he patted Fritz.

looking at photos of him returns me momentarily to how it felt when he was living this life with us. a monumental distraction from his death that brings him back to me while i look at them. i continue to be jolted when i stop looking at the pictures, back into the reality that he is gone and that these things are just traces of when he lived. but they do soothe, they make his memory more alive, and help to keep him a part of my life.

i long for some thing to memorialize him. not a stone, not a locket with his fur, not a doll sewn from his old dog bed with his smell on it. the right idea has yet to present itself, and i wait to create it when it does.