Coucoumellisms

One of my favourite poems, back in grade eleven English, was this one by Elizabeth Barrett Browning: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right; I love thee purely, as they turn from praise, I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints -I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! -and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. Just as there is more than one way to love a person, there is more than one way to miss a person. There are also many ways to miss one's dog, when he has died an untimely death: I miss you Toby, when I get up in the morning and I look down at the foot of my bed, t

June 2007 Toby was born in March 2004, in our neighbour's garage, where he works. We got him for free and took him home on Mother's Day 2004. He was the cutest puppy. Of course, being cute is not everything. We spent an exasperating year, teaching him not to chew on barbies and other toys, to not jump on strangers, to not run off, etc etc. We used to laugh that we had a vacuum cleaner, (cleaning the floor) roto-tiller, (digging in garden) fan (his tail), hedge trimmer (again, his tail) all rolled into one. The multi-service dog. He really liked people. Everyone was his friend. We also used to laugh that we could be robbed and Toby would, instead of chasing them off, probably help them move all our stuff to their truck. We had a real problem with his running off all the time until I finally had to throw a rock at his head to make him stop and realize that it was NOT a game. After that, you only had to pretend to throw something and he stopped in his tracks. The last yea