Some say a song will trigger a memory.
That is true; so many songs, so much music passes both good and bad memories. I can’t stand to hear Foreigner, Waiting for a Girl Like You (memories of a marriage gone quite bad), or Fleetwood Mac Landslide (Loss of a heart animal). Don’t even get me started on Garth Brooks, The Dance.
But in this case it is an object that brings me back to a time. A good time; a happy memory. A snow globe.
I suppose it is or was to be a Christmas snow globe of a yellow dog in the snow and a cardinal. For me, it brings me back to one perfect memory of an early spring in Yosemite, our Yellow Lab Willow, with us.
We were at Mariposa Gove, with snowbanks still on the sides of roads, melting and crunchy but snow and ice. Willow had never seen snow. Never touched snow. And when placed on this crunchy white stuff she did as so many dogs do. She ran in short spurts, back legs catching her front, Zoomies of joy.
Joy.
It was a time when all her pains and illnesses were at bay. A time when she was the only dog, but soon to have her best buddy Cody at her side. It was a good remembrance of this wonderful girl.
That’s what this snow globe brings back to me. Those wonderful seconds of pure joy from our Willow, seconds of freedom in something never experienced; those seconds of being just a dog. I loved that image and will never forget it.
I hold this snow globe throughout the year and think of that great memory, and the remembrance of her complete happy collapse at the hotel (Narrow Gauge Inn) her head over the edge of her dog bed in a ‘hangover’ position. She was exhausted.
She was happy.
We were complete.
The Snow Globe tells all.
