Before life with my wife Angela, I lived alone in a condo with a radiator.
Most mornings, I’d been staring at the clock since 5:23, calculating how long until I could text someone on the east coast to confirm I wasn’t completely alone.
The texting math wasn’t really about whether anyone was awake. It was about not looking desperate. A text at 5:23 AM says, I need somebody. Later in the morning, I could pretend I had a reason.
I’d learned that if I reached out too much, people sometimes stopped answering. Then I was really alone.
The radiator would clang right around 6:52 AM every morning. Most days three clangs, one clang days were special. I’d do whatever breathing exercise I’d read about most recently. My little ritual. Possibly crazy, but it helped me.
Those mornings were after Silver died.
Black Lab. Runt of a runt. Twenty-five dollars from a family who called her “the eager one.” I remember first seeing her in their basement. Half the size of her brothers and sisters and moving twice as much.
That first night, there was no puppy setup, so newspapers in the bathroom it was. That lasted about five minutes. Maybe she was too scared or too excited or both. We were a good match.
The first panic attack with her happened in the pitch black. I could only see the whites of her eyes. My chest had decided she’d be the last thing I ever saw.
Silver padded over and wedged herself between me and the wall, put her head on my chest and breathed. Deeply and slowly. My body copied her.
The last year was hard. Her hips and bowels were failing. The day she died, I was sitting on the floor. She dragged herself over, softly whimpering, and put her gray head on my chest.
Her breathing was slower because breathing was hard. My body copied her. In for three. Out for five.
At the vet’s office he said: “She’s telling you it’s okay.”
I believed him.
That night, I lay on the floor where Silver used to lie. Around 3 AM, her usual check-in time, I felt the phantom weight against my side.
On weekends, I walked the same path at around 7:40 AM. An older couple walked in the opposite direction.
At first, we nodded. Then waved. Eventually: “Morning.” Which in the Seattle area means you know each other very well.
I never learned their names but felt warm when I saw them anyway.
I was traveling for work one weekend and when I got back the next week, she grabbed my arm.
“We worried,” she said. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
In my defense, I’m consistent.
The next Sunday, I was there at 7:40.