Goodnight, Maille

For the first time in 29 years, I am officially pet-less.

I've had a pet of one kind or another, and often more than one, continually since we were married.

We're still feeding two semi-feral cats, but if they truly belonged to anyone it was to Maille, aka The Wag of Mass Destruction. She was the dog who worried when I had a sick ferret. She separated the cats when they started fighting. She got calls to "go outside and play" with the neighbor kids. She was my 50-lb wanna-be lapdog, my pound puppy - the dog that chose me when I wasn't looking for a dog. How she knew that I needed her, I can only credit to God.

I don't know exactly how old she was when we adopted her from Animal Control. We had almost 9 good years with her, watching her muzzle turn greyer every year, the arthritis slowing down her walk but never her Wag.

The house feels lonely now. The cats outside miss her, too.