This afternoon I walked with the dogs on the path, past the tree where Rosie pursued her Imaginary Squirrel every day of her life, for nearly eight years. I told the dogs that I would sprinkle some of Rose’s ashes there, when they come in an urn in a week or so.  The dogs listened closely, but have no interest in such things, really. They just want to be polite and stay out of trouble.

There was a good place for the ashes,  a shallow trough where Rose had faithfully circled and watched,  beneath the maple tree where the squirrel had appeared. Water from the hill had cut a narrow ridge along the path and down to the meadow grass, the green now fading to a pale winter yellow. Dead grass, no longer of interest even to sheep or donkeys.

The squirrels and chipmunks were still squeaking and skittering back and forth, gathering food. A chickadee danced nervously in the lower branches of Rose’s tree. It was a gray November day, not a December day, and the clouds  were emotional and hung low over the pasture, pushing a heavy wind along the path, rustling and swirling the dead leaves in the trees and along the forest floor.

“Hey Rose,” I said aloud to the wind. “No squirrel today. I’ll look tomorrow. They say that you are up there watching me, waiting for me. They say they know for sure that we will meet again in another place. They say you are listening to me, that you will remember me? Is this so?  Rose, do you remember me?”

The dogs stood silently on the path, turning to me, watching me, their noses up in the air. The chickadee hopped up to a higher branch.

Down in the meadow, on the edge of the forest, a gray fox,  frozen still, was looking up at me.