It's just after 11 a.m. on Christmas morning. I've been awake for the last twenty-six hours. I woke up north of Seattle at my dad's place yesterday morning, and then in unbroken succession cranked out website code for a few hours, traveled by ferry boat to my grandmother's house, stuffed myself on steak and lobster and loaded baked potatoes, drove straight to the airport, boarded a midnight flight that took me two-thirds of the way across the country, sat in a quiet corner of O'Hare's Terminal 3 for two hours in a state just this side of delirious, walked across the tarmac and up into the back of an eight-passenger Cessna Caravan piloted by a guy who wasn't old enough to buy beer in most states, and once airborne again watched the gridded canvas of mid- and lower Illinois stretch out to the south-southwest as if toward infinity. All of the time and effort and indigestion and waking dreams brought me here, to Burlington, Iowa; to the home of Kristen's grandmother; to the living room where four months and twenty-five days ago I found my wonderful little dog Walter dead, laying on his side against the wall opposite from me, to the left of the TV.

I expect to feel overwhelming sadness, both for the companion that I lost and for the sudden and traumatic way in which I lost him.

I don't.

I'm sad, of course. But Kristen and I have become used to this kind of nostalgia, to recognizing the gap that exists between what is and what was. We felt it when we had to drive back across the country in the van without Walter riding shotgun in Kristen's lap. We felt it while walking the streets of Portland with the jingle of his collar tag nowhere to be heard. We felt it when we hiked along a trail in a national forest without him charging ahead off-leash with that look on his face that made it seem as if it was the happiest day of his life. We felt it when we looked out into the backyard of Kristen's parents' home in Los Angeles and didn't see him laying out in the sun, content to watch the birds and squirrels and assess the layout of the world around him through constant sniffing. I still feel it when I wake up in the morning and he isn't wedged against my thigh or my shoulder and taking up half with width of a queen-sized bed. And I feel it this morning when I go down into the basement and see my cargo bike leaning just in front of Walter's little red trailer, right where I left them back in July.

Yet it doesn't take even twenty minutes for all of these feelings to be swept under by the rising tide of the holidays. There are aunts and uncles to talk with, turkey and mashed potatoes to eat, judgments on family behavior to render, cheap beer to drink, and offensive comments to try and ignore. That's how it goes. That's the nature of life. No matter how good or bad or inspiring or punishing the events that fall your way, they come and they go and the hours and days and weeks and years march on at the same steady pace.

Heart

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We set out on this trip knowing it was more than just another long bicycle ride. Bringing Walter with us was a kind of test, a way to figure out if it was possible to travel on bikes with someone who isn't able to take care of themselves. We'd never done anything like it, not even for one day. We knew there was no guarantee it'd work. And at the start it didn't seem like it would. Our first couple of days on the road made us think failure was only a matter of when, not if. Our loads were heavy, our speed slow, our dog unsure, and the weather unforgiving. But about a week after rolling out of Bar Harbor we started to find our pace, our rhythm, and ways to make everyone involved feel comfortable and safe and happy. The month that followed as we passed through Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, and into Ohio was one of the greatest of my life. We saw beautiful country, shared our lives with so many kind and interesting people, created a vast catalog of vibrant memories, and ended each day with the satisfaction of knowing that we had a chance to experience all of it on our own terms.

The lessons we learned during that amazing month made it clear: when we have another dog we'll bring him with us, and when we have a child we'll bring her with us. We know it won't be easy. Where to eat, where to sleep, how hard to ride, how far to travel, how to occupy yourself during bad weather: these are just some of the factors that affected the character of our trip when we chose to make our duo a trio. But the trade-offs aren't what we remember when we look back. Instead our eyes light up with visions of the lakes and streams of the Adirondacks, bright green rolling hills, riding in the back of an open-air Amish buggy, cranking up and over The Kanc, creating elaborate inside jokes, feeling our bodies become stronger and more capable, and falling asleep in an undisturbed corner of forest in one collected mass of skin and fur and synthetic clothing. Traveling as we did was an affirmation of ability, of purpose, and of life itself.

What came after also gave us a better understanding what it means to fight for those you care for. We gained this understanding because we failed to fight hard enough for Walter. Based on the autopsy performed by the veterinarian and the research we did in the week after his death, we first believed that it was the result of some kind of heart infection. But now we're almost certain that his heart failed because of something more specific, something called Addison's disease. The upshot of the disease is that the dog's adrenal gland doesn't produce enough hormones, including cortisol, which helps the body regulate metabolism and respond to stress. One of the side effects of this deficit is that potassium levels increase and can cause heart arrhythmia and even heart failure if left unchecked. What we know now, but didn't at the time, was that Addison's is common among West Highland Terriers. Despite this, none of the vets we visited mentioned it — not even the last one, who when discussing Walter's blood work with us dismissed out of hand my question about the high potassium levels shown on his chart.

We should have done more research. We shouldn't have taken the word of one semi-interested veterinarian as the final answer. We should have traveled to a proper animal hospital in a larger city and had a full battery of tests run and interpreted by someone with more specialized information and experience at their disposal. If we'd done all of this there's a good chance Walter would still be with us today. There's a clear path of recovery from a serious event like the one he faced, and a simple once-a-month shot could have kept him from ever falling into that kind of situation again.

But we didn't. For so many unintentional reasons we didn't. I know we can't go back and fix what's already done, but we can make sure that we don't make the same mistakes again. Back in September Kristen and I both had an outline of Walter's paw tattooed into our left forearm. It not only helps us remember the profound impact he made on our lives, but also reminds us what to do when we're faced with the same kind of challenge in the future. Medical professionals don't always get it right. In this case it cost us our dog; the next time it could be our friend, our parent, our child, or even ourselves.

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I don't like quoting at length the work of someone else. It feels cheap, like it's the easy way out of trying to explain something difficult or complicated for yourself. But whenever my mind turns sad about Walter I think back to a handful of lines from the Joanna Newsom song "Time, As a Symptom":

So it would seem to be true:
When cruel birth debases, we forget
When cruel death debases
We believe it erases all the rest
That precedes

But stand brave, life-liver
Bleeding out your days
In the river of time
Stand brave:
Time moves both ways

In the nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating
Joy of life;
The nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating
Joy of life

The moment of your greatest joy sustains:
Not axe nor hammer
Tumor, tremor
Can take it away, and it remains
It remains

And it pains me to say, I was wrong
Love is not a symptom of time
Time is just a symptom of love

And so we remember Walter for everything he gave us during his life and the lessons we continue to learn now that he's gone. We remember and we move on. For Kristen and me that means so many important and meaningful and challenging things: traveling far and wide in our old Volkswagen camper van; spending time and creating memories with our families and our friends; hiking through some of America's most beautiful landscapes; creating plans and dreams and intricate scenarios involving the small piece of land we own together; wondering about the personalities of dogs and children that haven't yet been born; and fighting with everything we have to avoid returning to the state of normal American adulthood that we long ago left behind.

It also means heading back to the road on bicycles, where the joy of life waits to be discovered in some new form once again.