Dulce's Visit
Our duplex has a horseshoe shaped driveway with two drives that connect with the county road. A power pole occupies a small area where the left drive ends. The space around the pole was Dulce's. Every morning around 8:30 our neighbor Ruth an accomplished person and retired florist, would open her door to allow Dulce out for her morning relief walk. Dulce a brownish, Cocker/Springer Spaniel was resolute, looking neither left nor right would quick-step up the right driveway to the road. There she made a sharp turn right and traversed the remaining 40 yards carefully staying along the road's edge. Arriving at the pole she would sniff about, quickly wiz, move her bowels, then sniff again. Refreshed, her toilet complete Dulce resumed a kennel club posture and proceeded down the drive's left side, around the "U" and up the walk to Ruth's open front door.
Dulce was always cool towards me - but she loved my dog Swede, a Great Pyrenees/Husky mix. If Swede was in the front yard Dulce would charge at him, stop and then jog away expecting him to follow. (Honesty forces me to note that she was something of a tart.) If he did not she repeated the exercise. Swede usually followed after the second display. Together they would happily run off toward the pond, into the trees and abandoned pastures. They would return within an hour occasionally muddy, stinking or both. Once they proudly jogged toward the house with Swede's jaws clutching a deceased woodchuck. He saw me dropped the corpse and came running. Dulce stopped, clamped on to the woodchuck and brought it home to a surprised Ruth. "DULCE - GET OUT!!! Dulce died in 2005 from complications associated with 13 years of age.. Ruth a wonderful person died at age 92 in 2009.
Late in August 2020 I walked out the driveway and passing the power pole noticed that a yellow flower had blossomed. It appeared to be some variety of a Daylilly but my research was inconclusive and incompetent. Wind, rain, a bird, a human or an auto had deposited a seed in Dulce's special place and a flower blossomed. So What? As my 6th grade daughter Liz once said after I tried explaining to her about life, death and quantum mechanics, "Well, that's not very satisfying".
So I wish to believe that Ruth recently opened a cosmic portal and out marched sweet Dulce determined to check on her former home. She arrived and looked for Swede (but he would be waiting for me at the Elysian Ridge). Dulce walked the property, drank from the pond, sniffed among the trees, ran and played predator in the fields. Two grazing rabbits ignored her. Before returning to Ruth she proceeded back to the power pole area. Now at some earlier point Dulce playing in Ruth's celestial garden had ingested some seeds. The stuff Dulce now deposited at the pole was of course ethereal matter dissipating before even touching down. But one seed survived the process and plunked down on warm, moist earth. The result was a perfect yellow flower and warm memories for me. (For further explanation consult a physicist).
