The sixth day...

I feel myself getting numb again. I'm doing what needs to be done in the house but it's like everything is being accomplished by a robot. And I can't help looking out of all the windows to see if Savannah is running up our hill or through our pastures, on her way home and back to her life with us.

My husband and I drove into the next town last night, certain in the hope that we would find Savannah on one of the streets there. We saw lots of dogs, but not ours. We start out on these evening drives with so much hope, and then come back home defeated. It's as if she vanished, just disappeared as if she had never existed.

This morning we had to call the air-conditioning company to check the system which wasn't working properly yesterday. They discovered a snake had crawled up into outside unit and when the air conditioner clicked on, the snake was caught in the fan... which has to be replaced now along with the motor. At any other point of the year, I would have been complaining about living in the country and being exposed to snakes... and now I'm just worried about Savannah encountering a snake in her travels. One bite from a poisonous snake and she'll really be gone, not just lost-gone.

We had rain again last night, which cooled off the temperature. Now Savannah is wet, but at least we didn't have thunder last night. With each loud noise she hears, she's probably running for cover again and again and again. We've posted up so many fliers that I've lost count. And this morning when the air-conditioning guy left, I gave him a flier and asked him to post it in the office when he gets back. The technicians drive all over the county on service calls... maybe one of them will see Savannah.

The guy this morning asked me how she got lost, and I told him about the fireworks from across the road. He looked at me and said "In April?! Who shoots fireworks in April?!"  I nearly laughed.... everyone who has heard this story says the same thing.  I can barely look across the road now at that neighbor's house, and I will seriously have to bite my tongue the next time I see them anywhere.

As I type, Sweet Pea is sleeping in Savannah's bed, all curled up in a corner of it. He wouldn't go near that bed the first few days Savannah was gone, even though he took a nap in there every other day, whether Savannah liked it or not. I have put away Savannah's food dish and water bowl. It was just too sad to keep seeing them in the corner of the kitchen. Her pink velvet leash is still on the chair by the door, and I'm praying that she's still wearing her long blue leash which would make it easy for someone to grab hold of her. Savannah's sense of caution around strangers will make it difficult, if not impossible, for her to approach anyone.  Surely, she must know that people will have food, and if she's hungry enough, she needs to take a chance and trust someone to feed her.

I also know that someone may find her and decide to keep her. She is a pretty dog, and very loving when she learns to trust. If the person who finds her decides not to call my phone number on the ID tag, then I have to hope that they will love her and take care of her and keep her safe.

My phone is quiet most of the time. Friends call to ask if we've had any news about Savannah, other friends send me an eMail because they don't want my phone to ring 'busy' if someone is calling to say they've found Savannah.  I used to get upset with Savannah when she barked in the middle of the night, and now I wake up in the morning and feel immediately sad because she is no longer here to bark for us.

I do not pray a lot, if ever. I don't know if there really is a God up there or out there or everywhere, and I don't have enough faith to just blindly believe. I was raised Catholic and I believed what I had to believe when I was in the Catholic schools, but I questioned everything, all the time, and got in quite a lot of trouble with the nuns for my faithless doubts.  When I was older and no longer under the watchful eyes of the nuns and priests, I came to my own conclusion that we are all our own gods, that the life and destiny we either enjoy or endure are of our own making, and no amount of prayers to a 'supreme being' will make our lives better or different.                                                                                  
That is just what I believe, and I don't try to impose that upon anyone else, nor do I disrespect whatever anyone else chooses to believe.  I strive to be kind and compassionate and generous to everyone I know. I trust everyone until they give me a reason not to trust them. I have loved everyone in my life without judging them, because we all walk this earth in the shadow of our past experiences. With certain people along the way, the hurt and pain got to be too much for me to endure, and then I just walked away and never looked back. I did that not to hurt them, but to save myself from hurting.

With all of that being said... last night before going upstairs, I looked out of the window and down the road, hoping to see my sweet Savannah running towards the house. Then I looked up at the sky and without thinking, without even planning to, I whispered  Please God, bring Savannah home. The words just came tumbling out, as if they were waiting to be released into the universe.