Hammond Small, pale, scraped and battered, malnourished, with stomach bloated from neglect. We almost drove right past without seeing. Then a tug on our hearts and the pleading in your eyes brought us to a halt. I had to wade through a snaky ditch filled with mud and briars and try to hold you still to extricate you. When I approached you did not try to run. Your dark huge eyes looked into my mine for the first time and my heart broke. It would not be the last time. You grew so well, recovered into so much beauty and love. Your coat became a honey colored velvet. Your gait grew strong, your stance grew confident. Your wisdom and understanding quickly came to be far greater than mine. I only had to tell you once and you understood. (Although you had moments when your stubbornness showed through) I remember the day of the tornado. Coming home to see you quivering against the tree while your doghouse was strewn across the yard and knowing knowing you were inside it when the angry wind came. Once again my heart broke for you. You never again went inside it and never again did we ask you to. I remember when they told us. Inoperable. Hammond, my precious bundle of love and hope, you never stopped shining, you never stopped giving me a smile, a wag and a kiss. Through all the pain, and trips and tests and uncertainty, you kept giving, you kept looking into my eyes as you had done from the first and you were, in the end, stronger than I. I still feel the velvet of your ruff under my hand as I sit in your favorite chair. I look at the rug beside it and my heart dies a little more. That last day you knew. Thats what made it so hard. Yet you also let it be. May all the love and hope we had for you and that you had in you be an inspiration on the other side. I only have one question, my most beloved - without the life of your eyes, how will I see? Wait for me Hammond. I want to see you run to meet me, whole, happy and no sign of the mass that hindered you in life. And on that day, as I cross the bridge towards you, I will call your name and say, Come, my love, let us do what we love best, running, with each other.