Snow Business

 Dear Will:

You would have been amused at Sequel yesterday. She saw the snow monster and started barking at it!  You liked to point out the snow monster, both when you were you and when you had the dementia.

What I am missing about you today is our shared jokes, shared life references.  “Ebow.” “Puttin on the Ritz” “Hey hey, my my …” one of our earliest. The places we traveled and returned to in food and conversation. The year after visiting New Orleans when you made a habit of cooking some meals with “three peppers for the whole mouth treatment.” The year after England when we had tea.

But I lost you before I lost you. Before you lost the connections to our shared life, you sometimes asked, “Where have we traveled?” Or “What countries have we traveled to?” And I would list them and you would try to remember and you would remember fewer and fewer as time rivered our shared life to its finale.

But here in the present in multiple ways you are still with me. As when Sequel saw the same thing you did and barked. So she has a connection to you. You share a pareidolia.

And sadly, her bark also means I need to work harder on her being so talkative. I have the "no bark" tool. I need to remember to carry it.

I don’t know if you would like Sequel. She’s very alpha, unlike sweet Princess Birdy. She will not allow me to lie on her or hold tight to her to assert my dominance. So we’re working out our pack relationship with my using a lot more treating than I did with the princess.

Oh, and last weekend. The three shiny pennies right where I would see them - one beside my parking space at Newport, one in the house, one at the mailbox.  I’ve never given much weight to this particular superstition but I’ve known about it for decades (mostly from the occasional letter to Dear Abby. And last weekend I had a horrible embarrassment:  a brain fart and awhile reading the psalm. Ack!  So I need help from above after my horrible mistake … thanks you if you were responsible for my copper finds.

I miss you each day and yet I am entering my fourth year of your absence with Snake Energy. This will be a more functional year for me. Even Brezsny says so.

 

Love you always,

 

Kake