Winter night walk

This is one of the nights I most wish Beckett was still a baby.

The snow is falling softly and heavily in the park. It's not too cold, and sound is muffled everywhere. The snow shades the streetlights and park lights, making them glow like Japanese lanterns in the dark.

In the winter of 2014, when this picture was taken, I would have let him off his leash and aimed him in the direction of the snowy park. He would have run, leapt, gambolled, rolled, snuffled, and tunnelled. He was the fastest dog in the park in his youth, and he streaked through the snow like a mink-black horizontal avalanche.

The puppy of those winter nights is a far cry from the stately, dignified senior Labrador at the end of the leash tonight,

Beckett still buries his face in snowbanks in search of the perfect dollop of scent—his sense of smell is still extraordinary—but he walks cautiously and delicately now. He stays close. His eyes aren't what they used to be, and while he still considers snow and winter to be the most perfect natural miracle, everything is...shorter. Briefer. More poignant. More valuable.

He's happy to get out in the snow, and very happy to be back inside, in his bed by the fireplace.

I'm blessed to understand the place in the road in which he and I now find ourselves. I can see where there may soon be some sort of a bend. I pray it's not too close, but it enables me to easily remember how important time is—time for the soft, constant touch, time for the gentle, constant voice. Time for paying attention to his every reaction, which lets him know I'm nearby, and listening, and caring, and loving, and cherishing all the moments that make up all the snowy nights we still have together.

Mostly, reminding him that he's never, ever alone.

And on nights like tonight, when there are so many memories of so many other snowy nights, over so many years, in "his" park that they crowd in close like benign, bittersweet, ghosts, that's everything.