Every day, just as the sun is coming up, I awaken and check on the slumbering beast next to me to see if he’s still breathing. Sometimes he wakes me up as though he’s doing the same thing, depending on what I did the night before. However it goes, this is our time to get up and do our morning thing. Our walk.

This fall will be the 11th year we have strolled under the fall foliage together. Sometimes he pulls me along, and other days he lags behind. Today he did the latter, and I wondered if this would be our last fall. Time is cruel to pet owners, and owning a large breed dog can be particularly hard when it comes to time- their time is usually shorter than average breeds. And today was a cruel reminder of that, as he favored his left leg and panted along side of me. It’s hard for him to keep up. And it’s hard for me to watch. I know it’s coming- the day I will wake up and he won’t be by my side. But before that happens I wanted to do something for him, in his memory, that I had thought about doing so many times before.

This is for all the Boo Radleys out there that saved our lives the day they found us.