If patterns of thoughts create grooves in the brain, then I imagine that an MRI would reveal a Baxter shaped indentation of worn neuronal patterns in mine. Open door coming home: where is Baxter? Mealtime: put out two bowls. While working: stroke Baxter gently with toes. Getting up from desk: check to see where Baxter is so I don't step on him. At least once per hour: big Spaniel hug just to make sure he knows he's loved/just to make sure I know I'm loved. Each time now that I think that thing or do that thing according to the usual synaptic groove, there is a little shock when I remember that I can't anymore. I imagine the shocks will inevitably condition me to stop having these impulses and thus I will gradually no longer need them, as I internalize his absence. Not sure if I want that to happen or not. In some sense, since he's not with me in his big ol fluffy goofy body, I at least like the fact that he is so deeply imprinted on my mind.

 The vertiginous drop of the soul/heart/spirit upon coming home, opening the front door and seeing what your dog is up to/awaiting the welcome and then...remembering that he's not there anymore. ever.

 When Sancha died I used this space to remember things about her. The cycle repeats, we (pet owners) are like Charlie Brown with the football, except we get to spend 10-15 years each time scoring touchdowns and THEN inevitably God/Biology pulls the ball away and we, no less vulnerable than the last time, fall face first into grief.

I knew Baxter would not live forever and yet, because he had been at the brink of death once and heading in that direction several times more, and had each time stopped short, done a 180, and demanded a cheeseburger...I did think, in a part of my mind that reason does not touch, that he would live forever. And he did...until yesterday, September 16, 2022. He could have lived more, but he could not have lived well, and so I made a decision. I am fortunate that in all my great grief--and I am so, so sad--I do not have any doubts about that decision. Even when I made the wrong decision and prolonged Sancha's life through an ultimately futile surgery and 5 days of agony...I still didn't blame myself for it. But now I know I did the right thing, I know Baxter was ready to go. I don't want to explain his decline here right now. I want to use this space to remember the things that I need to remember as I need to remember them, and right now I want to remember him in all his quirky, goofy, clumsy, lovable, huggable, ever-hungry glory. 

More memories to come. I miss hugging him. I miss him following me everywhere, the way he just lumbered over to wherever I was going and then, with his big sigh and klunk, plopped down at my feet. Never asking for attention (although always happy to have it), just fulfilling what he clearly perceived as part of ht e dog contract, which was to be at my feet. Chip sat at my feet today in the living room, which he never did, and I'm not one for getting all new age-y about things, but it's hard not to think that (my theory) Chip knew I needed that today and/or (mom's version) something of Baxter's spirit has entered Chip. Also there was a weird patch of rainbow in the sky--not stretching across the sky, more like a rainbow-cookie, that I'm sure could be explained by meteorologists or physicists but given that neither mom nor I had ever seen anything like that before, did also plausibly seem to be angel Baxter.