Every once in a while, my dog Freddie comes to visit. For a few days, or sometimes a week. I'm going to have her for almost a whole month, straddling April / May, and I'm really looking forward to that.

This is part of a shared custody arrangement that developed after my ex and I broke up. It is, as Martha would say, a good thing.

When Freddie sees me, when she first arrives here, she is absolutely joyous. Gleeful, ecstatic. Her doggie voice, in my head, says, "Mommy Mommy where have you been? I've missed you so much … " She barks and wags her whole body and leaps in the air. She jumps in my lap, several times, and tries to lick every part of my face that I will permit her to. She smiles in that doggie way that some dogs smile. You know they are smiling.

When it is time for her to leave and go with her other Mum, she simply walks out the door without a backward glance. Oh sure, I pick her up and cuddle her and pat her and thank her for visiting me and tell her how much fun we'll have next time … but she knows she is about to have a change of scenery and she is staring at the door, intent on what happens next. Not on the emotional disentanglement of the moment.

She is incapable of saying "goodbye". Or rather, she is incapable of behaving in a way that I can anthropomorphize as "Goodbye, Mommy … I had fun! See you next time!"

No navelgazing here. No wrapping up, summarizing, reviewing, pondering … nope. "What's next?" is her general approach to life.

Sometimes, I think it would behoove me to take a page from her book.

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