We said goodbye to Tracer on August 2, 2019. That day has turned out to last longer than most -- he was what my parents might have described, when I spent hundreds of dollars on his chemo, as "just a dog." Not so. He was just Tracer, every day going about his routines as if they were religious ritual -- the watch over food prep, the interest in the dishwasher, the hour at the hall window after breakfast in hopes that a rascally chipmunk or dashing squirrel would appear, the appearance in front of me at 9 p.m., the time of day when (after Milt's death) when I had habitually said "time for TV Tracer," and off we'd go to drop the blinds, turn on the TV and watch and snooze and watch. Around 11, before the chemo started, he'd get up and stare until I moved to take him out and put him to bed iin his crate. For 12 years, with a few memorable exceptions, he slept until his humans got up, or he waited quietly. He's in every corner here, and yet he's not. And the weeping of August 2 goes on, sometimes rushing out without warning. Like when he should be there to get a Frosted Mini Wheat, or two or three. Or the end of the banana.
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