The candles! We NEVER have candles. My human is having the special dark dinner with the friends and NOBODY is eating.
They are all holding hands. All of them! At the table! I love hands, I love holding, this is the BEST. I put my chin on a knee to help. Nobody threw the ball. That's okay. Maybe soon.
They keep saying a name. Over and over, the same name, real quiet, like when my human calls me from another room. GRANDMA. Grandma? Is Grandma coming?? Somebody is COMING?? I go to the door. I sit at the door. I am so good at the door. The door is where the coming happens.
Nobody is at the door.
But my human keeps calling and calling for someone who is not here yet, and I know this feeling, I know it so well, it is the feeling of WAITING for the very best person to walk back in. My human misses somebody so much they turned off the lights to say the name. I know missing! I do the missing every single day at 8am when the car leaves!
But here is the secret. Here is the thing I learned that nobody else knows. They ALWAYS come back. The car always comes back. The person always comes back. You just wait at the door and you wait and you wait and then the BEST thing happens.
So I will wait at the door for Grandma. All night if I have to. And when my human is done being sad at the table, I will bring my whole body over and lean, because I am here, I am HERE, and there is definitely a snack after this.