I brought Winter home today. Her ashes are in a carved box, and they were accompanied by her paw prints on a card, in ink.

I put them on her little bed in the sun, with her hairbrush and favorite toy. The hairbrush still has her beautiful gray fur in it.

I feel like our lives are a series of homecomings.

Winter has one more. My heart feeling is that she belongs back in Albuquerque, near her bright origin story, not her dark ending. The next time I am there, I will take her ashes and spread them in the place where I put the ashes of our two dogs, a beautiful location very near where I found her.

In the meantime, her physical remains will be with me, on her sun-bed. I thought about mailing her ashes to my ex and asking him to put them in the Albuquerque spot, but (a) I want to be there, and (b) there is no hurry. Winter is eternal now, there’s no rush for anything.

She’s OK with me, for now.

I want her little spirit to be happy. I want so much for her to be frolicking somewhere in the sunshine, her little crooked tail waving as she looks for butterflies. Or maybe her tail is healed? Maybe it’s as long and luxurious as it should have been, and lets her jump as high as she likes?

I want her to be free. If she doesn’t remember me right now, or come for visits, that’s OK. I’ll be there with her soon enough. I hope she’s playing with Jake, and Cairo, and Memphis, and Gabriel, and Dabba-Doo, and Tessie, and Cinder. Oh, and Charlie and Cortland, because who can forget the rats? And Paula the turtle, who I think might have been a Paul.

It’s weird how I so glibly say that people just turn to dust when we die, and yet when one of my animals passes, they’re crossing the rainbow bridge and living on forever with all the other animals. Anything else doesn’t bear thinking about. The scientist in me knows that the only purpose her ashes have is to feed the trees in the location where I plan to release her remains. But the wretched woman left behind can imagine nothing less than eternal life for that small being.