Oh how we say time flies, but then there are those days that just seem to stay frozen in time. It was just about two years ago that I had to put my good friend down. I still feel a little lost without him. I miss his fierce protection of all under my roof. I miss his smell. Probably only true dog folks can follow that, but every dog I have owned had their own distinctive smell along with their own pedigree of personality:
Samantha (the sweetest), Pork Chop (the happiest), Midnight (a troubled black lab I could never quite follow), Clovis (the only dog we ever paid for, unconditionally the smartest and who was so tight with his pack) and then comes Grace (our blue-eyed deaf rescue found abandoned at a West Texas railroad station and who is now my only four-legged shadow).
I have loved each of them greatly and differently. Each one has brought me their lifetime of joy and buckets of tears upon leaving. Clovis was my poser dog. Whenever I got out my Nikon, he was quick to notice and quicker to upstage anyone and anything.
Since I lost Clovis, I have not, with any degree of seriousness, picked up a camera. He just took that out of me. I have tried to shoot at some images, but every time I pick up a camera I hear his tags a jingle, a bump on the leg wanting to know where he should pose. My heart goes adrift and the camera back in the backpack.
I am a sentimental old coot and damn but I miss them all and can pull up many a tearful memory. I have to ask, how can a dog steal my vision? Hey, if they can steal your heart, vision is pretty much a simple task.
Get busy living or get busy dying!…”Red”…aka S. King
Peace Out, jasL
Shades of Gray - Denison TX 
that was a really moving post. A lot of things leave traces in our hearts and that’s okay, I think. I had a cat for 18 years and still love to remember her, her little sounds, her funny moments, her soft fur etc. Maybe it takes a little more time for you to overcome this loss.
Mitza, thanks for the kind words, I am much in need of them. Loved your work on your website……….
Good to hear from you.
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What a touching post and beautiful image, James. I see you posted this a long time ago and I hope that in that time your heart has healed some and that you’ve found some inspiration in your art again. Peace.
Ms Jane….thanx for the visit and kind words from someone a respect. No, I am still “on the wagon” as for picking up my cameras. I am regaining the vision of images but am happy to just record them with my mind’s eye.
This last year (2018) was just a killer. Started with back surgery in January. That was a slow mend. Then my cardio doc saw some blockages and said I needed a stent, in the hospital in the am out the pm. I woke up the next morning feeling like I feel off the back of a truck. They found 100% blockage on 2 arteries and 70% on another. They had cracked me open and I had triple bypass open heart surgery. Cardio surgen said I was a walking (widow maker). I was lucky. So two months later started having severe angina. They put me in for a heart catheter and found an artery on the backside of my heart with 100% blockage. So back into the hospital they do a roter rooter thing and put in 2 stents. I do my last cardio rehab tomorrow.
I really do’t know if I will ever be whole again and I just have no urge to pick up a Kodak. I have never been anything but a photographer. My father was a Navy/Marine combat photographer during WW II. So I had cameras at an early age. Started shooting when I was 4, had my own darkroom at 8. By the time I was 13, I was making far more money than I needed selling photos to the local newspapers. So, I am really just feeling lost. I suffer from chronic depression, anxiety and bi-polar and this heart thing has not helped. I am a walking drugstore 12 pills in the am, 8 at 4pm and 10 more at bedtime.
We will see what He brings to my plate……..blessing to ya…..how you like that Fujifilm camera? jw
Maybe Clovis would want you to get out there. I understand. I don’t think I could love a dog anymore than I love my Augie … a Welsh Terrier with tons of personality.