"My dad passed away two summers ago, and his old Irish setter, Ruby, still swims out from his dock every evening. Dad had a little place on the lake, and every night after dinner, he would walk down to the end of the dock with a cup of coffee... and Ruby right behind him. They would sit there together and watch the sun disappear over the water. She was his shadow for 11 years, and wherever he went, she followed. After the funeral, we brought Ruby back to my house in town because we thought keeping her close to the family was the kindest thing to do. But she never settled in. She stopped eating properly, paced through the halls at night, and spent hours standing at the back door as though she were waiting for someone. After a couple of weeks, my mom finally said what the rest of us had been avoiding. “That dog needs to go back to the lake.” Ruby lives at the lake house now, and my mom stays out there with her. Almost every evening, around the same time Dad used to take his coffee down to the water, Ruby walks slowly to the end of the dock. She stands there for a moment, looking across the lake, before carefully stepping into the water. Then she swims one slow loop beyond the end of the dock, passing the same stretch where Dad used to cast his fishing line. When she comes back, Ruby climbs onto the boards, shakes the water from her coat, and walks over to the place where Dad always sat. She lowers herself down in that exact spot and faces the sunset until the last light disappears. The vet says there is nothing physically wrong with her. She is simply an old dog keeping an appointment she has kept for most of her life. We still drive out there most weekends. Sitting on that dock at sunset with Ruby’s gray head resting in my lap is the closest I ever feel to my dad now. Do you think dogs understand that someone is never coming back, or do they keep waiting because love has become part of their routine?show more

Crazy Moments

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