The Divine Old Dog sent me a voice text this afternoon,

first she sent an Emoji, a dancing dog, it popped up

on my Iphone, and I thought it might be her,

“I didn’t know you could text, and with video no less.”

I messaged back with my own Emjoi,

a big face with a teary smile. “Yo!,” was the message.

“Sure,” she wrote, “they love Apple stuff up here,

devices everywhere,

we are in the Cloud, of course, very busy here.”

“How are you, Divine Old Dog?,” I asked.

“I am good,” she said, “just checking in. ”

She added:

“I didn’t get much rest, there is a demand for big

and scary dogs who protect people, I’m working with

a young boy who has some scary people around him,

I ran off several of them today.”

There was a pause.

“How is Maria?,” she texted.

Okay, I said, she misses you, but

she thinks you were ready to go.

“We got strong together,” she said,

“she needed time to grow and know herself,

she doesn’t need a dog like me now,

my work is done. You know us spirit dogs,

we come when we are needed, we leave when we are done.

Maria can take care of herself. She is strong.”

“Is it sad for you to come and go?,” I asked.

“No, not really, I miss people for awhile, but

the good thing about my job is that I get to do it again,

I like to go where I am needed, and move along when I am not.”

Still, she said, it was sweet being down there

on the farm.

“We hated men together,” she said softly,
“And then we found out you could trust some of them.

At least for a bit.”

I thought I saw her wink.

“The thing is,” she said,” there are a lot of strong

people who think they are weak. People pick on them.

I can be helpful.

I scared this boy’s drunken uncle so bad he peed himself and ran

out through the screen door. A bully, he won’t be back soon.

Maria would have loved it.”

“Do you want to talk to  her yourself?,” I asked.

“No, that’s not allowed, she said. “Gets too emotional. Just

wanted to thank you for being so patient with me – I didn’t like you coming around –

I know I gave you a hard time, I needed to

let you know I am deep in my next chapter.  No time to rest. He

is a nice kid, young, I’ll be here awhile. One night here, and I’m sleeping

at the foot of the bed. And he is sleeping now, too, for the first

time in months.

I’m young again too, the angels do amazing

stuff up here, so he and i will grow up together. I can

run again, and my legs don’t hurt, I got a chipmunk today,

snapped him in half, tossed him in the air, it was awesome,

everybody screaming at me.

My young man will be strong one day too.  Take care of Maria. I loved her a lot.

I know she’ll probably get some cute wussy dog, I can’t say I blame her.

Humans are like that. Change, change, change. I was ready to go.

Stay warm down there.”

And then she was gone, the screen went blank.