There at the end... Panda did not want to leave.

I was visiting, for the last time, as it would turn out, at Kate's on a Saturday when my father asked me to take the dog out. I acceded to the request. I have never minded walking the dog, regardless the temp. Oddly, though, Panda did not want to go out. I had noted her reticence to leave her mistress's side prior to this, too. I had sat on the left of the bed, opposite the home-health nurse, for fifteen or twenty minutes after getting in, & Panda was pacing around & under the bed, while deciding whether to make a roost at Kate's hip.

Of course, Panda did not -- explaining the necessity to walk her shortly -- but you develop a certain dread when you see an animal grow nervous & weary. I did, but I still wanted to get out for a walk, if for no other reason than to take my mind off the impending demise. The odd thing in the walk, though, was Panda chose to trace the block "backward" from what she would do usually when I would walk her. Rather than counterclockwise, approaching Newberry on the departure & Locust on the return, we went as does the clock.

In that decision, then, I was reminded of something. Nothing related -- directly -- to my stepmother, nor the disease that was ravaging her from the inside, but it still resonated with the moment. It was the song "Clockwise" by the Strike. I had not thought of that band in six months, and probably had not listened to it in a year, but as Panda & I turned the corner at Shepard, there it was. A song dissipated to just a moment when I was nineteen, pounding, chugging, back.

Shortly after, I got back to the house -- in probably ten minutes time (Panda made it a quick walk; she wanted to be home more than I) -- & I readied to leave, but not before stopping in the bedroom once more. The same lagging, but deep, diaphragmatic pushing, was there, but ever so slow; the force was going out. My stepmother had -- by my count -- seen & celebrated four Christmases since she had become aware of her plight, though this last was quite depressive in comparison to the three before, & she had visited or been visited by almost all of her significant (& due her geneaologic efforts, multiplicitous) relations, her countless friends from three decades of teaching, sailing, & hobbyism (bird-watching, bookclub), &, of course, her ever-present attendant, her dog.

When I left the house at mid-afternoon that Saturday, 4th February, then, my aunt had assumed the high-back chair where the nurse had previously sat, & Panda... Panda was nestled at Kate's hip, breathing with her, attentive to any final turn into the dark of the unknown. I almost cried, bawled, really, but I was able to hold back, content that Kate's vessel had proven as full as necessary.

& at that, I went forward. Always, forward. Time marches on, but as the melody that struck me instructs, so did, so will, I. Kate would not want anything but.