When Button first came into our lives we were both still in the paid workforce.  It was agony leaving her alone during the day while we went off to work.  Returning in the late afternoon/early evening, to rescue her from her solitary confinement.  She was dreadfully anxious about having us with her.  As a normally curious puppy she wanted to explore and to test the confines of her narrow world, but she had no wish to do so alone.

We decided we would never leave her alone if we could help it, when we weren't at work.  So she would accompany us everywhere.  When the food shopping had to be done one of us would stay with her, waiting for the other to accomplish that weekly task.  Otherwise, she quickly adapted to our method of bringing her everywhere with us, comfortably seated in a carrying bag slung over my husband's or my shoulder.

It always surprised me when we were approached by complete strangers, attracted to the sight of her.  And this happened so often that someone would approach us to coo over her, and then relate the heart-breaking story of having had a small black poodle just like Button, and their grief over having lost her to old age and the inevitable.  That would always startle me, even though one might imagine I'd become accustomed to it.

Now I understand the deep well-spring of their memories, their grief.  Because, of course, we've experienced it first-hand ourselves.  But would I approach someone with a young dog and burden them in that manner?  I would not.  I would not wish to.  Not only because our loss is a very private one, but because it's simply unfair to others.

Yet I can also imagine that all those people over the years past who did that with us didn't really mean to.  They simply reacted to an emotion stirring deep within their consciousness, and the overwhelming sense of loss brought vividly to the fore.  And then tried to share their loss, meaning to convey how very much it deprived them. 

It cannot be done.