Annoying Dreams

I keep having these dreams where Bella shows up. The setting and storyline surrounding the discovery is always different but the rest of what happens is always the same. I'm always approached by this little black and white dog and it always takes me a second to realize, "Holy crap, it's Bella." Then I always wake up in a good mood and it takes me a while to realize that it was all just a dream and Bella is still no longer with us.

Bella went missing just shy of a year ago. I let her out one night like we always did. When I got ready to go to bed, I called for her to come in and she wouldn't come. It was late, I was tired, and she had done this before, so I just went to bed and let her stay outside. She was always waiting at the front door the next morning. We live nearly a mile from the nearest paved road with anything resembling traffic, so it wasn't really a big deal. But this time, she was nowhere to be found when we got up to get ready for work. We posted classified ads, drove all the dirt roads that crisscross the woods and fields near our house calling for her and she never turned up. We'd occasionally get calls from people who'd read the ad and thought they found her but the dog was never even close to being Bella. After a few months of this we gave up. What's worse is that this all happened only a couple of weeks before the contractor who was working on some of our home renovations finished putting up the fence in our back yard. Bubba made the transition from free-wandering stray to backyard pet safely, but Bella disappeared too soon.

It may sound weird to those who've never had a close relationship with a pet, but K got Bella on a whim as a wedding present just a few months before we got married. Bella had kept K company during her first year of teaching when she lived alone in an apartment in a town where she didn't know anyone and when I worked nights at the newspaper, I'd come home every night with Bella waiting at the door to welcome me home. While I wound down with a beer and a book, Bella would curl up next to me on the couch. When I woke up in the morning, she'd be waiting at the foot of the bed or tucked behind the bend of my knee waiting for me to roll onto my back, her signal that I was awake and it was time to pounce on me for a good wrestle before heading outside to relieve herself.

Having a dog outside just isn't the same. Right now, if Bella were here, she'd either be on the couch with me or on the rug near my feet. As it is, Bubba is outside wishing he could come in but stuck outside because K doesn't want a dog that large in the house. His 60 or so pounds is a bit more than Bella's 20 pounds, but he's actually less energetic than Bella, so I don't think it's really a big deal. Still, I'd miss Bella even if Bubba were curled up next to me with his head on my lap right now.