My Two Writing Teachers colleagues and I are hosting the 16th Annual March Slice of Life Story Challenge, in which teachers from around the world participate by posting a story per day.

This year, the SOLSC gives me a chance to record memories of our little dog, Indie, who died in January. I want to write these down while they are still fresh, so that my family and I can read them later and remember not only Indie, but little slices of life across the years.  

It was cold and clear on Indie’s last day, January 17th. After he died, his pawprints were still frozen in the ice all around our yard, in the driveway, on on the deck outside our kitchen sliding glass door. Despite his age was happy and strong right up until his last few weeks. His pawprints mapped out his trips to the edge of the woods behind our house, his marches up and down the front walkway, his running across the deck.

For days and days after he died I looked out the sliding glass door to check on his pawprints. Sure enough they were still there, but each time I checked, they were slightly more melted. His prints were slowly vanishing. Each time I looked, I would also sob. I kept this a secret, the frozen pawprints. I didn’t point them out or with my kids or my husband—it was too sad.

Just when it seemed that the pawprints were on the verge of vanishing, something wonderful happened one night. A snowstorm. Big beautiful fluffy flakes floated down and blanketed the pawprints, layer after layer after layer, filling the deck, covering the yard, the front walkway, the driveway, all of it.

I felt better knowing his tracks were covered by snow. And when the snow melted not long ago, the prints were gone. I keep looking for some little speck, some faded pawprint in the dirt on the deck. But no, it’s all washed away now.