Just over 10 years ago, on a sun-dazzling September afternoon, two golden scintillas of inextinguishable life wandered from unknown wilds to enkindle a weary heart. Brother and sister, doughty whelps later named Jock and Angel, brought color and vivacity to an existence that had long ago staled. We immediately became an inseparable trinity of unalloyed love.

Angel's preternatural beauty suffused every corner of my being with radiance and warmth and vitality -- and inspired a fresh awareness of order, symmetry, perfection ... the feeling that, somehow, all was right and harmonious in the world. She was sublime, far more than just a canine companion. There was a mystical bond between us, and there could not have been a truer soul mate.

Then, the unthinkable happened. Last February, Angel was diagnosed with a vicious, merciless cancer that tore her from me in a pitiable 13 days. I'm still in shock. She was unique, literally one of a kind, and there will never be another like her again. Her going left behind the cold, lightless, absurd void of insensate entropy.

And I miss her beyond all reason. The pain of her loss is insufferable. Despite a harsh life, I have never known a pain so devastating, the quintessence of genuine heartbreak. As for Jock, he deeply misses her, as well, and looks for her everywhere. He leads a downcast, desultory life, but sometimes the old sparkle returns to his eyes ... as though he catches a glimpse of her once again impishly provoking another madcap chase. I console him, "She is nowhere we are not; we are nowhere she is not." And that's what sustains us. That love is transcendent, immortal, supreme. That the brilliant lives bound together on that faraway September day are indeed inextinguishable, are indeed eternally one.