An odd dissonance has set into our lives in such a short space of time. It is difficult to overcome the feeling of bleakness. We each set about our usual daily routines, both singly and together, to achieve the crown of the day, in an effort to return to normalcy. It will come, doubtless, in time.

It's hard to find emotional rest now. We're both very fragile, and need one another, so we are grateful that we do have each other. But there's an elemental spark that has temporarily been snuffed, and a grating emptiness where before there was not. It appears that it is in our emotional makeup to care for and nurture others together. Over our 60-year marriage it was first our children, and then, after a lapse of decades, it became two little dogs.

Taking ourselves off for our daily walks in the woods likely does help. On the other hand, due to a weather combination that is fairly unusual for this time of year, the forest has shed much of its snow in the moderated temperature and precipitation that has fallen in the last while as rain, not snow. Everything looks as dismal as we feel; raw and desolate. So it's questionable just how much it helps us now, although it does to a degree.

Things, we know, should be proportional, and it's difficult to convey to others who ask, how we feel. We don't want to speak of how we feel, but with family members sometimes it's difficult to evade such things. Not many people can understand the emotional devastation that sets in with the loss of a 'mere' pet, an animal, a dog, for heaven's sake. Get another one.

Some, like my sister, do know what it's like to experience such a loss. It was useful for my husband to speak with her at some great length. But placing things into perspective, which is what society insists upon, is a hard taskmaster. Yes, we know, and we grieve at a distance for the horrible loss of life with yet another AsiaAir/Indonesian/Malaysian aircraft down. We imagine the desperate horror of the people in the Italian ferry that had to be evacuated, where seven people died in the process. We shudder with compassion for people in Africa, in Syria and Iraq assailed by fanatical religious psychopaths.

All of this sorrow in the world does nothing whatever to help with your own pain, which suffuses one's spirit with the agony of loss ... to think that the death of one very small creature could create such emotional havoc in people is difficult for others to find credence in, but that too is life.

Yesterday, like the days before, we came across few people in the ravine. It is too muddy, too slippery, to attract people at this time We did see one young man whom we've seen from time to time with his two dogs, a 7-year-old Bernese mountain dog, and a three-year-old Bull Mastiff. He is passionate and verbose about his emotional investment in his companions, in particular the Bull Mastiff. It's the second such breed he has had the care of; the first died at age three from the result of a cancer difficult to treat. Large breeds like those have exceptionally short lifespans. But he is devoted to them, and he will suffer.

It's just as well that we cannot, and have no wish to look ahead into the future. The present, and our undying hope and anticipation is what motivates us; without that we would hesitate to commit ourselves to anything, much less to love vulnerable creatures with whom we are able to communicate and treasure our lives made more fulfilling, with them.