{"id":2497,"date":"2012-02-10T22:55:28","date_gmt":"2012-02-11T04:55:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.8statekate.net\/wordpress\/?p=2497"},"modified":"2012-02-10T22:58:42","modified_gmt":"2012-02-11T04:58:42","slug":"zena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.8statekate.net\/wordpress\/?p=2497","title":{"rendered":"Why I Don’t Shovel All the Snow"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes I still feel her presence,<\/p>\n

Riding behind me in the back seat of the truck<\/p>\n

Like she used to.<\/p>\n

When her back legs got weak and she couldn\u2019t walk very far<\/p>\n

She rode in the truck behind me<\/p>\n

And looked out the window,<\/p>\n

Feeling the breeze, inhaling the smells.<\/p>\n

She was a Bernese Mountain Dog<\/p>\n

Beautiful, majestic<\/p>\n

Too big for me to carry<\/p>\n

As she had carried me through so much of life.<\/p>\n

I knew she would leave her failing body soon.<\/p>\n

So we went for rides<\/p>\n

With the windows open<\/p>\n

and enjoyed each other\u2019s company,<\/p>\n

using all of our senses,<\/p>\n

longing to hold on to that feeling<\/p>\n

Forever.<\/p>\n

When it was time to let her go,<\/p>\n

God sent a blizzard<\/p>\n

for she loved the snow.<\/p>\n

She stayed out on the deck all day<\/p>\n

Turning white like the ghost she would become<\/p>\n

Lying in her patch of snow<\/p>\n

Loving it.<\/p>\n

When we let her go<\/p>\n

Her spirit took flight<\/p>\n

And Rusty jumped straight up in the air, startled<\/p>\n

Putting an exclamation point on her exit,<\/p>\n

leaving no doubt that she had gone.<\/p>\n

For a while<\/p>\n

I found clumps of her black hair<\/p>\n

in corners of the house<\/p>\n

But I didn\u2019t want to vacuum up<\/p>\n

this part of her.<\/p>\n

That is why I don\u2019t shovel all the snow<\/p>\n

I leave a patch in the middle of the deck<\/p>\n

Where she used to be<\/p>\n

And I imagine her there yet, enjoying the day.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I still feel her presence,<\/p>\n

riding behind me in the back seat of the truck<\/p>\n

Like she used to<\/p>\n

I look over my shoulder and I don\u2019t see her<\/p>\n

But I know she is still there.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Zena<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes I still feel her presence, Riding behind me in the back seat of the truck Like she used to. When her back legs got weak and she couldn\u2019t walk very far She rode in the truck behind me And looked out the window, Feeling the breeze, inhaling the smells. She was a Bernese Mountain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[291,290,273,287,289,288],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.8statekate.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2497"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.8statekate.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.8statekate.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.8statekate.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.8statekate.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2497"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.8statekate.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2504,"href":"https:\/\/www.8statekate.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2497\/revisions\/2504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.8statekate.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.8statekate.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.8statekate.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}