2012
A good year with a rough ending.
Our lives are a little disjointed without Jackson.
Things are a bit off, a little amiss.
The house feels different, sounds different.
The energy is different.
One dog + one dog equals about 6 dogs.
Yet, when you take one dog away, you only have one dog left, not five.
I swear dog energy is exponential rather than simple addition, subtraction.
It helps to tell Jackson stories.
Remember the first time that he and Libby met each other at the dog park?
The camping trip when he absconded with the most wonderful smoked salmon in the world?
His hero moment when he stopped the bad dogs from attacking Libby and me?
The way he would sneak up behind me on the porch and lick my face and then laugh?
The hikes where he would carry Libby's food and his own?
The way he loved water and would dive to retrieve a stick or rock?
Hikes where Jackson would take out our knees carrying a big timber down the trail...our logger dog?
Remember when he ate a whole bag of cat food, a whole batch of cookies,
all of the Christmas desserts, a box of doughnuts?
And, of course, the elk guts deserve a whole paragraph, but I will refrain.
How he would sneak up into an easy chair and when found out would slither off like a seal,
lay down, and pretend like he was asleep?
How he loved haying time, all those mousies under the hay bales?
The way he was always happy to see visitors and offer up his best nyla-bone or rope toy?
How he loved a ride in a red pick-up truck even if it was only from the house to the barn?
How much he loved us and how much we loved him?
Jackson at the crest of Strawberry Mountain
So without Jackson we are a little mixed up and goofy.
It will take awhile to find balance.
Like disturbed atoms we will jostle around until we find a new equilibrium that works for us in 2013.
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Thanks for sticking with me on this two year blog-venture through the happy and the sad.
Marilyn
