Our kitchen floor has deep and narrow gaps in some of the oak boards. It's not unusual for crumbs or a drop or two of soup to fall into the crevices. It used to be amusing to watch our old border collie mix desperately try to retrieve a grain of rice from a floor crack with his tongue.

When he wasn't licking the floor for crumbs or spilled milk, he was lying on the floor. Not unusual for a dog, you might think, but how he would scratch and claw his way under a bed was comical. I still haven't had the nerve to examine the damage he may have done to the finish on the cherrywood floor in the extra bedroom.

It's been more than two years since Dexter left our home and our lives, yet once in a while, we'll find something to remind us that he was here – teeth marks on the edge of a wood tabletop, a faint stain in the carpet, a small chew toy lost under the sofa, dog tags tossed in a drawer, or the braided leash still hanging behind the kitchen door.

There was a special place in the cabinet where we kept Dexter's few possessions like extra collars, dog shampoo, Nylabones®, and various pet cleaning products. I don't know why we kept all the stuff, but the pet odor remover came in handy a few years later when the kitten relieved herself on the sofa.

On the desk of my cubbyhole-of-an-office is a small bag. Among some of the items, such as a retractable leash and a choke chain, is a plastic folder containing receipts from Dexter's entire medical history. The papers tell his story, beginning when he was a puppy getting his first shots to his last day when we mournfully brought him to the vet and said our goodbyes, our eyes flooded with tears. Sandwiched in the stack of 16 years-worth of doctor bills was a receipt for an operation - he had to have a chunk of a tennis ball removed from his intestine. Another paper was for surgery to repair a torn ACL. Countless pages documented every office visit and medication ever prescribed. Although it looked like a lot of doctor bills, Dexter was generally in good health until his last year or two.

So far, my description of our house might give the impression that we never clean it. On the contrary, the other day, I was vacuuming the carpets and sweeping the floors. While cleaning the blue carpet in the study, I noticed some of the fringes were missing. Maybe Dexter had chewed them long ago when he was a puppy, or perhaps they had merely worn away from foot traffic and vacuuming.

When I went into the kitchen and began sweeping the floor, I soon realized I needed to use the vacuum to pull the debris out from the crevices. I never noticed how clean the floor used to be when Dexter was here.

Story and Cover Illustration Copyright © 2021 by Michael DeFrancesco