A funny thing happened after my father died.

In the end, I felt relief. I suppose, in quiet moments, I wondered whether it was a relief for him as well, but such musings don’t lead anywhere and I pushed them aside. What I didn’t feel was loss. The process had been too long and draining to experience his absence in that way. Instead, it was the lifting of an emotional weight.

Then Ruby and Daisy disappeared.

This pair of overly excited black-and-white dogs lived with their family in a house next to the Kaaawa Fire Station. On a good morning, they would come blasting down the stairs, or explode from some dark corner of the yard, bounding and barking towards us, secure in the knowledge they would each be rewarded with a dog biscuit. Sometimes they would run off, eat the biscuit, and come running back for a second helping. This was a pair of vary, very happy dogs. We didn’t see them every day. They might have been out and about only one day every couple of weeks, but we always looked for them, it was part of our daily routine, and when they did appear it was always a long, frenetic, and joyful moment.

Then, several months ago, their family held a big weekend yard sale and we learned they were moving to the mainland. For the time being, Ruby and Daisy stayed behind, but were scheduled to join the family later, after they got settled. “Later” had no dates attached, at least that we were aware of, and we continued our intermittent morning meet-ups.

Then one morning we looked over at the house as we walked past. We both saw it, but Meda said it first.

“It looks empty.”

And it did. The walls were suddenly bare, the furniture gone, along with Ruby, Daisy, and the cat whose name we never really knew.

They were gone. And now the I was slammed with that rush of loss. They’re gone.

I could feel my chest start to tighten, my throat constrict, tears there somewhere in the background, and I had to send special messages to my feet to keep moving. They won’t be here tomorrow morning, even though the habit of checking for them as we walk past will linger for a long time. They’re gone, Daisy, Ruby, the cat. My dad. The wave swept over and then was gone, in its place a background ache that will probably be with me for a while.