After

It is quiet.

Still.

Empty.

How can a tiny house feel so large?

Because she is gone.

No longer the loud, gasping, yet shallow breathing. No longer do I need to "try" to get her to eat or ask her, "Excuse me, can you move? I need to walk here..." None of that. She is simply not here any longer.

I know she was tired, worn out from trying to stay near me, with me. She was a good dog even at the end.

My son will be home in a week. I know we will have a couple sad days. The his girlfriend will be here for the holidays. The nephews will visit; something which seldom happened with Cinnamon in residence; their mother fearful of all dogs possibly biting.

Cinnamon was the FB meme of the wild-eyed boxer saving her pack from the proselytizing evangelists, mail people who might indeed go postal leaving a package, or even the village clerk leaving those dangerous agendas for monthly village board meetings. "You mean they are not trying to kill us?"

That evening after she died, in the quickly fading light, I indistinctly saw a couple boxers cavorting across the alley at the end of my yard. The silhouette of a boxer is so distinctive, yet their markings in the winter light indiscernible.  A trick of the light, surely. Loose dogs are always an issue in town, and yes, there are other boxers here, just not in my neighborhood.

I not sure what I saw. There was something in my eye. I would like to think her spirit is cavorting somewhere, her breathing no longer labored. She deserves it.

She was a good dog.