As I peck away at the keys here, the overhead fan – we decided years ago, when we built this place, against air conditioning, and instead put fans in the five most-used rooms – blows a gentle breeze down the back of my neck. Just behind me, in the stuffed swivel chair and directly under the fan, Kiki’s stretched out in blissful repose. “Repose” is a better word for what she does than is “sleep.” If she ever sleeps, I’ve never seen it. She can appear, as now, to be slumbering deeply after the rigors of an exhausting day; but if I move even enough at my desk to make the chair casters turn, she pops instantly to attention: “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” I tell her. “Relax. I’m just stretching.” Even at three in the morning, if I have to get up to go to the john – she normally sleeps between my knees – she knows even before I say, “Excuse me a second, sweetie. Gotta go; be right back,” and leaps to a safe place. As soon as I get settled down again, poom! she’s back with a leap. A small sigh, and she’s again in what my computer calls Sleep mode.

I can hardly imagine what life would be like without her. She arrived here a few months before my wife died, so she’s bridged that terrible transition. And rather than rattling around the house, like an old dried pea in a tin can, I’m instead constantly accompanied by a silent little shadow. Remember the Robert Louis Stevenson verse you learned as a kid? The one that begins, “I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me, and what can be the use of him is more than I can see”? That would be Kiki – if it weren’t so very obvious what can be the use of her.

It turns out that the loss of a lifetime partner is more destructive to the bereaved than I, at least, had supposed. There wasn’t much change in the routine of this place, except for the two hours that I normally spent each day visiting at the nursing home. Even the impact of the finality of the separation wasn’t unexpected, intellectually; but the physical body apparently slips into a sort of grief, which it expresses in various ways unique to each individual. In my case it was increased arthritis, the discomfort of a hip that’s suddenly crying for (possibly surgical) attention, and blood pressure suggesting the need for medication.

I once visited a friend recovering from heart surgery in a four-man room. The gloom of that place was almost palpable. Suddenly, as we talked, a large, smiling nurse came in, exuding something I can’t name; but its effect was instant relief. By the time she’d spent a few minutes with each man there, touched him, and gone out, they all looked ready for a softball game.

That’s pretty much what nurse Kiki has accomplished around here. Without realizing what effect she has on me, she’s pulling me out of a dive that could have ended only in a crash. The sound of her plastic ball bouncing on the floor just behind my heels almost every time I move, is a constant invitation to play. Her nose rising just to the edge of the kitchen counter as I slice cheese is irresistible; she knows the last little chunk is for her. And her delight at visitors pulling into the yard mirrors my own – though I don’t flatten my ears back, wag my whole rear end, and press my nose against the screen door the way she does.

Internet searches and visits to the health center corroborate what I’m experiencing. Blood pressure is down, respiration and heart rate, as well. Touching and petting a dog, apparently, can affect a person that way. I’m still waiting for a lessening of the arthritis, but don’t want to pet all the hair off her back in the effort to achieve it. Dog owners live longer because they’re so often importuned, in ways that can’t be ignored, to get up and get going for walks in the park or a frisbee session. It’s a tossup in my mind whether I’ve taught her to do things like chase a ball, or she’s taught me to throw it.

Some mornings we go downtown for coffee and conversation. Afternoons, it’s to the park for a walk in the woods. Saturday mornings, there’s the farmers’ market, with lots of other dogs. Other days, like tomorrow, it’s off to a date with the TV crew and a new adventure for her. Evenings, like right now, her crepuscular pals begin to stir and steal quietly into the back yard. Sometimes the breeze wafts their odor in through the window; at others, the motion detector on the barn activates the floodlight, and she’s ready to go. Lately, one particular doe no longer runs from her, but instead approaches almost to nose-touching distance. Then begins a mad rush around the yard, and everything else melts from my mind and my heart.