By Dannette Horton, North Carolina
At four o’clock on a Saturday morning, a dish crashing to the floor in the kitchen downstairs awakened me. I heard my ex-husband, Carl, making sounds as if he was in pain. (Although Carl and I are divorced, he is still my best friend and lives with us.) My thirty-seven-year-old son, Eric, was pleading in an urgent voice, “Dad, please try to sit up in the chair.”
By Allen Anderson, Minnesota
Standing in line at a sprawling grocery store, I placed five bags of large sweet potatoes on the conveyer belt. A mature cashier with a kind, smiling face (I’ll call her Stacy) enthusiastically said, “Leaf’s food!”
Startled, I looked up. Although I’d been in Stacy’s line a couple of times, she wasn’t usually the cashier who rang up my weekly haul of sweet potatoes. And I didn’t recall ever telling her my cocker spaniel’s name.
By Scott Riviere, North Carolina
My partner, Robert, and I had a small Pembroke Welsh corgi named Duncan. About six months after Duncan passed, we decided to search for a reddish-brown-and-white corgi puppy. Duncan had been tricolor—red, black, and white. We didn’t want to replace him with another dog of the same coloring. That way, the new puppy would be able to make his own place in our hearts without always reminding us of our beloved Duncan.
By Lois Stanfield, Minnesota
I have been in love with Afghan Hounds most all of my adult life. Many years ago as a young adult, I had an inner vision of a female pup that guided my search for a dog of my own.
By Richard Binstead, United Kingdom
William was a Labradoodle but looked mostly like a fox-red Labrador. He was seven and a half when we picked him up from a rescue center in Wiltshire, England. William used to live on a sheep farm in Wales. But because he was frightened of loud sounds, he was of little use to the farmers, so he was taken to the animal shelter.
By Benny Callaghan, Minnesota
When I was a child, we had a family dog called Nelson. He was a standard long-haired dachshund with a dark-black coat and golden-caramel underbelly. He was beautiful and loved.