We can't go back, sweet girl

Sparkle walked me to what was the field tonight. I think it had been some time, and I do know each visit breaks my heart in different ways. This session left me feeling a distance to what once was. I suppose that's because there is less familiar to appreciate. Even my 'redefine your space' meditation brought me only inches closer to a feeling of security.

A larger pile of debris and building materials welcomed our entry into the grassy entrance. With further passage in, the old gate opening, which used to stand there on its own without surrounding fences, is now gone. The new street and stop signs were up, their vertical presence in the place of the old, tall trees.

We went across the dried and cracked soil spilled into the streets over the concrete curbs, and sat down in a spot looking back at the sunset. The tree I thought they were to remove stood there as a silhouette while a new resident of the development, actually a neighbor we know, rode her back by us for a few rounds of late day exercise.

I had held onto the comfort and quiet of the pasture for the handful of years Sparkle and I walked it together. Here I was tonight knowing it was really gone. How long does it take to say goodbye and how long can you hold it in your heart.

"We can't go back, sweet girl," I told her.

I wonder if in her dog ways she somehow remembers the green, too.