I Loved Her Eyes

I loved her eyes.

I loved the way they lit up when she stuck her head around the door when I arrived home from work. I loved how much more expressive they became when the gray spread to her eyebrows. I loved the way she looked at me on our walks. Multiple people over the years stopped us to tell me how they loved the way she looked at me, how could I express how much I loved it too?

I loved how they showed the character of the dog beneath.

I loved how she’d look at me, then shift her eyes towards the closet where her treats were, then back to me. I’ve often wondered when she started doing it, how long it was before I realized she was doing it and how much longer before I understood what she wanted. She did it until the very end when I was a little more generous with the charcoal treats she wanted, as she could eat them even when her appetite for regular food was waning. She couldn’t move her legs very well but those eyes never had any trouble darting towards the treats.

Here she’s curled up beside me on the couch in the fall of 2013 as I watched football on a Sunday afternoon, the gray spreading across her face. How old she looked to me then, how young she looks to me now!