As a shadow flits, my soul wanders back through time

I feel the heft of his arm across my shoulders
as we step lightly over the cobble rocks toward
my goodly parents' home.

Smiling, sharing a new-old love, laughing and looking into the eyes of each other, but he caught the lightning move of a brown and black furry shape hurtling at us. He saw and felt the
danger--not to himself but to me. He moved his big arm from behind my head to in front of my throat just as flashing fangs and a gaping red mouth clamped down on where my throat would have been.

A semi-domesticated German Police dog who'd been abused by a woman prior to becoming my father's guard dog had hurdled toward me, and had it not been for my soul-mate's arm, he'd have ripped open my neck; I could picture the gore gushing from the un-inflicted wound. The mind shows amazing graphics.

He walked with me. He was my friend. My heart. My love, in this life and the one before and the one to come. I never doubt this.

On a sunny outing with friends I was suddenly dropped into the ever moving Colorado River. It was completely a surprise. The depth of brownish roiling water surprised me, and being a swimmer I knew not to fight against the depth or the current. Seeming to feel time slipping by, I felt his big long hands reach down through the water and grasp my long hair...and pull me to safety.

He was my protector, my teacher, my love. Now, Before, and Forever.

He held my heart. He didn't always handle it with care. He learned that this life long love is worth cultivating...and he did.

As he lay dying, he told me he was more in love with me than he'd ever been in his life. He told me how all the things that may have hurt me, that he'd done, he was eternally sorry for. He sang to me during the night...and more after he passed.

When he could not forstall the Flight Home, he accepted my love, my care, my gifts...and I held his gnarled old hands and sang him through the Veil as angels took him up and away from that poor worn out body...he took a piece of my heart with him to keep til we're together again.

Til that reunion in front of our Lord, he watches and touches me through the Veil, but always here, I walk alone.