She's still here

Yesterday, everybody but Tierce was at Mom's, sorting stuff for the Garage Sale that was to free us of the junk that we have moved from basement to basement for the last 25 years or so.

Near the end of the sorting, I let Shassi out into the yard where she peed and briskly trotted around, sniffing at things and looking offended when her feet led her into a ball or a clump of grass that her eyes didn’t warn her about. My aunt was nervous for fear that she would wander out the other side of the house and go out into the street. Which she tried. I went around the other side of the house and met her at the gate.

She was not pleased when I carried her back up to the porch and set her down within its confines. I was wistfully remembering her when she was younger and the gleam in her eyes when she was caught after leading us a merry chase. Wasn’t that fun, the eyes used to say. They used to be brown, but are cloudy, now, and barely register anything besides light and dark.

She is kept from the yard and the street there by two plastic panels that are held in place by strategically placed pots of flowers. Unfortunately the one out to the street was not closed all the way and before I realized it, Herself trotted purposefully through.

I ran after her, blessing the near-14 years that made her unwilling to go past a brisk trot. She broke into a gallop when she realized how close I was, but I grabbed her before she really took off. Back to the porch we went. The gate was pulled fully across and a bunch of pansies kept it from going anywhere.

Undaunted, Shassi again headed towards it. With a hard shove of her nose, she pushed the gate aside and again briskly trotted towards the street. Again, I ran out to grab her and piled three more flower pots against the panel.

Just before she bowed to the forces against her, she glanced up at me and in her cloudy eyes I saw a familiar gleam.

Old for sure, but not dead yet.