There she is, she’s standing there looking at me, her body swaying with tremors, her eyes a bit dull with age, and her hearing, well, it’s almost nonexistent. She’s my dog, she’s my friend, and sometimes she is my baby. She has been by my side for 16 years; she has helped me train unruly horses. She has ridden in the saddle with me, she’s been riding shotgun in the truck since she was just a pup and has even traveled on a plane under the seat in front of me.

She is little but mighty, her heart is the biggest heart I’ve known, her stamina has always matched and surpassed mine, until recently. She stands there swaying, she loses her balance at times, and refuses to eat. I see her and my heart squeezes with pain. I want to grab the days and slow them down, but the harder I try to hold them the faster they seem to slip through my fingers. I know it’s getting closer to the time she will leave. I know that’s why she’s pulling away, she’s helping me say goodbye, to get used to not seeing her trotting next to me as I do chores and looking up at me to see what we’re going to do next. She is starting to prepare to move on, and this time we won’t be together. I don’t know when it will be…. today? tomorrow? a year from now? or could I really possibly get a couple years? I don’t know, but one thing I can tell you is that I would do it all over again. Having her in my life is worth the pain of losing her.

I sometimes wonder if God gave her to me just to show me what unconditional love looks like. We humans are flawed in our ability to love, we add strings, we ask for performance, but she never has, she just loves me for who I am each and every day. I can lay around the house, or clean, or do chores, or even just spend the entire day knitting, she doesn’t care, and doesn’t judge. Her relationship with me reminds me of God. Because like God, she loved me first, for who I am, 100 percent.

She is love, companionship, and security and I am blessed by her.