Our Dog

I was raised on five acres in Lake Stevens, a hobby farm. We had gardens, an orchard, a forest, a creek, a long lawn made for children, a barn, cows, goats, pigs, and chickens. A dog, a Samoyed, named Lisa, came one day in the back of a pick-up truck and stayed for eleven years. Her greatest delight was to love us, bound after us, a blur of white in the high field grass. I have a picture of me at age eight, barefoot, in a straw hat and green dress, arms wrapped fiercely around her. Of all the animals we had, she is the one I have never stopped missing. I would dearly love to have her right now, lying next to me.