It was good to get away for a week, despite my initial reluctance.  He won me over, he always does.  And so, off we went to the Waterville Valley of New Hampshire.  Re-visiting some of the trails we've been long accustomed to hiking through.  No longer embarking on the mountain climbs themselves, an activity that originally brought us to the White Mountains decades and decades ago, when our children were in their teens.  At 75 years of age my energy level and endurance for physical exertion no longer remotely resembles what I was capable of, even not so long ago.  My husband's physical capacity remains relatively intact, mine infinitely less so.

So there we were, on pleasant excursions to familiar places.  And there she was, a small black-ghostly figure, flitting about among the trees as she so often did, in the almost twenty years that she was our companion in that setting, as in the rest of our lives, during her time with us. 

  

She climbed so many mountains with us, from Mount Clinton to Little Haystack, Eisenhower to Mount Mousilauke and finally, when we could no longer manage those heights, repeated annual climbs to the twins, Welsh-Dickey.

When Riley was added to our little family compact we were reduced to more modest climbs, and there was no lack of enjoyment for all of us.  And then, eventually, when our granddaughter reached her teens, she too joined us in our mountain perambulations on a number of occasions.  But with us always was Button, through the years.

Last night, two days after we had returned home from the trip, I had a peculiar dream.  I was somewhere unfamiliar, and Riley was with me, my husband off somewhere, and we were awaiting his presence.  Looking out a window I saw someone walking by holding a small black dog, and it was Button.  I ran out after the person, desperately pleading with him to surrender her to me. 

I expressed my tearful gratitude to him as he handed her to me, and ran off with her, to await my husband's arrival, anxious to show him that she had returned to us.