9/17/2003

2003-09-17 - 4:26 p.m.

Bone white like sun dried fish bones and spitting blackened saliva, Vicky growled and I shifted nervously in my seat. "Oh crap, I hope she doesn't loose it" and all the other stomach in your mouth thoughts that arise in such a situation had inflated my head, almost to bursting, on the way to work this morning.

What sense to worry though. For a few hundred bucks she has been a work horse who asked very little. I haven't given her a bath in a year, just a little cleaning here and there. She barely muttered on icy mornings and on hot days when we would go out riding, she didn't even break a sweat.

But now like an old and empty can, she will be discarded and rarely remembered. I'd like to write 'I'll think of you always' but I won't because I will not. There will be another Vicky to fill her shoes and her work won't be any less hard or rewarding or philanthropic as her passing peer.

But today my heart beats a little light and pushes blood a little more stained with the sadness of a loss. May whatever your God is bless you in your eternity...and maybe one day we will ride the crowded highway, swerving and singing, again.