I have definitely been remiss in writing.  Posts pile up in my head.  And then life intervenes. This past Thursday life intervened in a terrible way.  I was taking Cosi, one of our four dogs, for a walk.  She was probably the smartest and most complicated and most interesting of our four dogs, the one whom we affectionately called our "problem child" because she was so hard to understand sometimes, so insistent and bossy at others.  I got to the bridge at the Xico side of the colonia.  I was on the side of the road where the traffic comes towards me, where the road just starts to widen after the bridge, where land falls directly into the river on the other side of the low barrier.  A bus was coming.  It was at the far side of the bridge, moving way too fast. I have to get us to the other side, I thought, where we can get off the road. I pulled Cosi, I yelled, come on Cosi, come on Cosi,  and Cosi, in the middle of the road, pulled out of her collar. The bus driver never slowed.  He was so fast, so loud, I screamed, "Cosi! "Cosi!" she froze, looking right at me.  The bus driver hit her. She screamed and was silent.  I heard the bus hit her twice.  I yelled.  I yelled louder than I thought I could, "NO! NO! NO! NO!" The bus never slowed.  When it had passed, she lay there twitching, her eyes blank, the lower half of her body demolished, guts and blood lying across the road.  I went to her.  Her blood washed my hands.

A wonderfully kind woman in an SUV a rich woman, I think, stopped and ran over and hugged me and held me and brushed my hair from my face.  I sobbed.  The woman said, "Let's get her off the road. Then no one else can hit her."

A man walking across the bridge on the walkway ran over.  "I'll do it," he said, and he did.  He pulled her into the grass.  I was sobbing.  I was useless.  Two very kind people.

I thanked the man.  The woman brought me home.  I thanked her.  I wish I knew her name.  I cried out to Jim what had happened.  He was heartbroken.  He so loved Cosi.

When you are retired as we are and spend much time at home, or walking your dogs, or watching them run, full of joy, in the fields of our nearby countryside, your  dogs become part of your family.  You come to love them, to know when they are upset or happy or frightened or maybe bored.  You know, no matter what anyone says, that they have deep feelings and deep attachments.

I miss Cosi dreadfully.  Maybe there is nothing after death.  But I hope somewhere, somehow her complicated spirit is running in fields, full of joy.

We buried her in the back yard.  We are going to plant flowers we already have bought on her grave.