Depth

***Bernie in her St. Paul backyard, likely my favorite photo of her. It simply epitomizes so many of the things I saw in her over the years. Take a long look and see how many character descriptors you come up with for her. January, 2006***

The sincerity of my missing Bernie surprises me. I fancy myself as a realist, thus I inherently don't dramatize many situations, including this one. I understand the cycle of life and accept it, so I don't dwell on or wallow in sorrow. So the moments when I miss her are genuine and deep. Naturally, she is missed when I come home, for example. That's a given. It's the times, though, that aren't "givens" that catch my attention. Like when I'm reading or doing anything else within the house, and my mind triggers to get up and go pet her. Or when my mind is muddied by the flux, to put it nicely, that our country and world are in today, and my yin to that yang, if you will, is to kneel by my dog and press my face into hers, and loose my mind and thoughts in her goodness. It's a very real, raw sensation of missing her. We were a very real and raw pack of two.