bear's first swim. everything she sees is alive, and the water is alive, she whimpered as she swam, and like fen, after she was out she got all uppity and barked at the wavelets at the harbor's edge. 

it was the first time i've seen chiara since mister. we swam together many times, and the golden before chiara oh my dog i forget her name. sara asked how's copper doing? and i said he's gone. she said something like how hard that must be for me and i said it's not, that i thought it would be, but i feel like he's gone but still with me, and guided me to bear, here, having her first swim today, in honor of mister. 

i know i will not have a dog like mister again, i miss him and get sad, but i don't feel an abyss where he was. i feel his full life. his life fills me. he fills my spirit with his each time i think of him, and when i think of bear and lulu, and the water scintillating, and the sundrops on my skin, evaporating into the first summer sky without him.