Have been here almost four years. Shortly after I moved here, she and her dog became a fixture. An older woman, always wearing a visor, and her older dog always walking together. She is not tall and the old black lab was almost as tall as her. Their strides were perfectly matched. You’d see her carrying her grocery bags with him ambling along beside her on the leash. Even in winter they would be walking. Her house at a major corner and he was always in the yard on sunny days. A fixture for sure. The last few days I have seen her walking about alone. Today, the first sunny day all week, I noticed no big black lab soaking up the much awaited sun.

Tears gathered in my eyes and my heart jumped as I wondered if something had happened to her companion. I’ll probably never know. The absence, however, was felt. Somehow, for some reason, a sense of loss held my heart. With the loss, a gentle whispered reminder of how many people we see every day that become like fixtures we never know. To ponder how little we know of them and their pain, needs, and losses. People like checkers at the store, food service workers, cleaning staff at work,  and so so many others. They are not fixtures. I know well the heart that has lost such a companion. So even though strangers our hearts are united. To ponder how different the world would be if that same common heart could be realized in us all.