Behold, a photo I took when Storm was younger. Maggie and I are still organizing the place, and we opened a box of wedding mementos and some random photos. There’s another one in there showing me and Storm with matching hair color, back when I had enough hair to bleach white. But I didn’t take that one, obviously, so it doesn’t meet the requirements of this project.

I don’t remember where the ball came from, I think we bought it or found it. Anyway, with her powerful doggy jaws, it took little time for Storm to put a hole in this ball and deflate it. But that made it better. She’d walk around with it in her mouth, looking a little pathetic.

By the way, if you don’t believe in genetic behavioral inheritance, how can you explain a retriever’s need to carry items around in their mouths? But I digress.

I do recall the fate of this beloved toy. Storm loves to swim. She loves to chase balls into the water, swim way out, then bring them back for another turn. Until you get tired of it. Or she collapses. Usually the former. Well, as this ball had a tear in it, it would slowly fill with water. We’d squeeze it out and continue. Well, one day it filled and sank. Storm paddled around for quite a while, hoping for a reappearance. We finally had to tell her that it had gone to ball heaven, where it got to play all day and always eat its favorite foods. Sometimes, when she looks sad, I think she’s still mourning that loss.

Categorized as: Photo