I stare up at the knotty pine ceiling in this sweet old cottage and see dog faces. There’s one that looks slap-happy. There’s one that’s long-faced. One that’s reproachful. Another, expectant.

Here, in this place of meadow and forest and pond, where the Milky Way is deep with stars, I remember our dog, Beez…

Beez, of the expressive eyes and sense of things as they are. Beez, without layers of history, complexity, and interpretation, just pure emotion.

I see him lying on his bed, unmoving except for his eyes, missing nothing. I hear the tick-tick-ticking of his toenails on the pine floor. I see him looking out the screen door toward the grass, the pond, the sun and shadows on the distant hill. I see him lifting his nose to the wind.

I see Beez trotting down the lane between the cottage and the pond, tail swishing side to side. I see him fishing, ankle deep, in the shallows for pumpkin seed fish, pawing and pouncing, catching nothing.

I see Beez on top of the world—a flower-dotted high meadow with a 180˚ view of the mountains. Storybook clouds drift across the sky. Beez and I walk along with the wind whispering, the insects buzzing, the birds singing.

I see Beez walking down the lane ahead of me, returning home. He has turned toward me, waiting for me to follow. Then he moves into the shadows of the deep woods, disappearing from sight.