As I typed the title up there, I wondered . . . Why so long? Why so detailed? That’s not like me. . . .  I know why, though. Because some years from now, if I am looking over archive titles, I want to see this one and realize immediately what it is. I think I will want to remember it – see those minutes in my mind again.

He and I were out there as we usually are after having done our schoolkid-dropoff- run. I had parked on the little rise in the road just before you get to the Swine Barn and this morning – at that time – the sun was a big yellow gauzy ball showing through the still bare trees. Yesterday, its brightness had led me to park a bit beyond the bend, but on this turning cloudy morning, it appeared as a warm soft glow. You could look right at it.

After awhile, I honked to alert Sydney and there he came – from the area to the east of the Swine Barn. The Swine Barn is mostly poles and roof with some sections of cast-iron enclosure fence reaching between some of the outside posts. You can see right through it – sort of. He went in that east end and meandered around, sniffing this and that and then, after my reminder honk, came out onto the grass and down to the road in front of me, detouring a little as he made his way.

Then he stopped – in the middle of that road/lane with the soft sun lighting the area  – and looked ahead at me in the car. But, we don’t know how well he sees anymore. Perhaps he just had nose to the direction of the scent of the car and me. I thought . . . Now this would be a picture to remember – this morning sun, this spring, this dog . . . but I had no camera. That is probably best because I sat there and soaked it in, willing myself to remember the details – the slight ruffling of his fur, the way his ears flopped, that smile of his.

How much longer? He will be 12 this April; my gosh, he will be 12 in just 16 more days. 84? Was he a little old man running out of the Swine Barn and looking at me from the road in front of the car? He is from a time when life had not crossed the threshold of people being gone; he is that link. Gosh, he is from the time of my 40’s – okay, the late ones.

We just held our postions – me looking through the windshield at him, he looking down the road at the car. I don’t have the ability to hold a vision in my remembered sight; it flashes and my mind sees it, but I can’t stare at it. I only get the flashes. I think I have it imprinted on my brain, somewhere maybe where it will stay safe for awhile. Maybe it will stay long after my mind has, as they say, “gone”. That would be okay.