Goodbye ole friend
Slideshow song, Change, by Big Thief.
Ali's last day on earth, September 29, 2026.
The next day, out by the park behind the middle school, I was practicing my yoga meditation there on the field, and up beside me from eyes closed, I hear this kinda snorting, panting sound, but with the jingle of a collar — sure to not be a wild boar, not that wild boars roam Sandy Springs.
I open my eyes, abandoning my lost attempts at meditating, and before me was a dopey golden flopping towards me, all the way, right up towards me, snout in my crotch and between my legs, till the golden grabbed my slide shoe that was beside me, took the shoe in the mouth and made me wrestle it free. Leaned up good against me, slobbered all over, the golden just wouldn’t leave.
Some hundred yards off on the other side of the field was the elder woman owner with hands upraised and shoulders shrugged as if to say, “Beats me. He doesn’t normally do this.”
Latched on to me and licking me all over I was thinking, “Oh, I know he doesn’t normally do this, but he’s here to say hello from an old friend.” Not that I could explain from where I was a football field away.
After a long enough moment, and with both my shoes bathed in slobber, I sent him back. “Okay, go get mommy. Go on. Go get mommy,” and off he went trotting back across the field and into the wilderness trail beyond where I was.
That’s about right, was the feeling. That’s what I’d’ve told Ali. “Go on. Go get mommy.”
