We made it three blocks before my phone rang.
Max was doing his usual thing – nose to the ground, zigzagging from one interesting smell to the next, completely absorbed in whatever dog drama had played out on the sidewalk the night before.
I was half-watching him, half-thinking about the meeting I had in an hour, when Dr. Martinez’s number flashed on my screen.
I almost didn’t answer. Max had just found something particularly fascinating near the storm drain, and I knew if I interrupted his investigation now, he’d give me that look – the one that said I clearly didn’t understand the important work he was doing.
But something made me pick up.
The blood work was back. The news wasn’t good. We needed to talk, soon.
I hung up and looked down at Max, who had moved on to examining a discarded wrapper with the intensity of a forensic scientist.
He had no idea that phone call had just changed everything. He was still living in a world where walks happened every morning, where the route to the park stretched out ahead of us like it always had.
I should have let him finish. I should have sat down right there on the sidewalk and let him take as long as he wanted with that storm drain. Instead, I tugged gently on his leash.
“Come on, buddy. We need to head back.”
He looked up at me, confused. We always went to the park. We always did the full loop. But something in my voice must have told him this wasn’t a normal day, because he didn’t argue.
He just fell into step beside me, glancing back once at the path we usually took, the one that led to his favorite bench and the pond where he liked to watch the ducks.
That was six months ago. We never made it to the park that day, and we never would again.
What I keep coming back to is that storm drain. The way Max’s tail was wagging as he sniffed around it. How he’d found something interesting and wanted to share it with me in the only way he knew how.
I was always rushing him along. How many times did I cut short his investigations because I was thinking about work or the weather?
Max never worried about reaching the destination. He was always completely absorbed in wherever he was right now. He taught me that the point of walking isn’t to get somewhere efficiently – it’s to notice things, to be curious.
Sometimes I feel like Max is still with me when I walk, in the way I find myself slowing down at the places he used to stop. The walk we never got to finish has become every walk I take now.
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