The taste of Red Wine and Tears

I sit.  My eyes hurt.  I can think of nothing else... I feel myself zoning out.  I've cried until I had no more tears, and then cried some more.  Calm creeps up and then is drowned by another tide of grief.  I wasn't supposed to lose her this way.  It was supposed to be slow, giving me time to adjust.  She was supposed to gradually get old, eventually needing me to help her up the stairs, followed by moments when we'd think "this is it" just to have her rally and be good for another few months.  I was supposed to be able to slowly accept that I'd lose her... some day.  Not this day.  And not this way.

I sip the deep red wine... lick the salt from my lips left behind my tears. I still feel the weight of her head on my leg as we cuddle on the couch, I can feel the soft hair of her cheeks, I can see her jaunty tail wag as she took point on the trail ahead.  I remember the chomping of her meal at midnight, as we're trying to sleep, because she can't eat if we might do something, so she'd wait until we were all safely tucked in bed and she could relax.  I remember how she would come back down the line to check on me (or Jeff) if we fell behind, or how she worried when things weren't quite right.  She was smarter than many people, kinder than most, and the best thing on this mountain.  She had no guile, no selfishness, no desire for anything except our approval. 

And I can't help but feel that it's our fault she's dead.  We moved back here... we brought her with us.  Even knowing that even being in the same county as HIM was potentially dangerous.  We left the job before, because of him and his poison.  Why did we think returning, it would somehow be different?  It is his self-absorption, arrogance and conceit that caused it.  He ran her over, even though being yelled at to stop.  And, to prove his utter lack of regard, he calls it a "bummer"?  Seriously?

And so, I sit.  Tasting dark wine and tears.  Waiting for the grief and anger and disbelief to all fade into some sort of acceptance and gentle memory.