So yesterday afternoon, my friend Aurelia's dog Daphne passed away.

It's a little odd to be writing about the passing of a friend's pet, but Daph was around for so much of the time that I've known Aurelia that I'm struck by her passing a lot more than I expected. In fact, Daph was around for pretty much all of the time that I've known Aurelia – Daphne was the fuzzy little friend that accompanied Aurelia just about everywhere, to both places that allowed dogs and places that definitely didn't. Aurelia had trained Daph to silently ride around in a duffel bag specially designed for canine concealment, so we'd ride on trains or eat in restaurants or, well, just about anything with Daph sitting patiently in her little blue prison at our feet, and then when the coast was clear Aurelia would unzip the bag just a little and up would pop Daph's head, peering out from under a little curtain of white hair to see what she'd missed. In the abstract, carrying a puppy in a bag everywhere may seem a little Paris Hilton, but once you got to know Daphne and Aurelia it became obvious that Daphne wasn't a fashion accessory, she was a best friend.

Daphne lived a long and rich life. She probably went to more classes at Kenyon than some Peeps, and she had probably seen more of the world than most people ever will in their lifetimes. By the end of her long life she was weak and frail and confused, and had even lost an eye, but she stayed by Aurelia's side for far longer than just about anybody else. At the time of her passing, she was an amazing sixteen and a half years old. In actuality, dog years translate more into 10.5 dog years for the first 2 human years, then 4 dog years per human year after that, which puts Daph at 79. If you follow the more traditional 7 years per human year, she would have been a hundred and fifteen and a half.

G'night, puppy. Sweet dreams.