Clarabelle Jane Briggs
Born July 15, 1992
Adopted September 19, 1992
Died October 22, 2004
Beloved By Her Mother For Always

Her name was Clarabelle Jane. She was a vibrant Force of Nature in a Basset Hound body.

An irrepressible, stubborn, persistent, I’ll-Do-It-My-Way-Thank-You-Very-Much-Diva who did not suffer the foolishness of mere mortal humans lightly.

A bossy big sister, keeping her baby brother Spenser in line.

A ribbons and pearls kind of girl, who ate daintily and refused to walk through puddles.

The Zza Zza Gabor of Bassets.

A snuggle-bunny who slept with her back pressed up against mine.

As necessary and irreplaceable to my heart as the blood that pumps through it.

She answered, when she was so inclined, to the little names of endearment collected over her 12 years, 1 month, and 3 days with me -- Belle, Claire, Clarisse, Sissy, Sassy, Sassafras, Sweet Pea, and Petunia among them. Sometimes still, almost a year after her death, I whisper these names into the wind – sending them out with my love like a missive to whatever remains of her out there.

I wonder if she can hear me. I sometimes imagine her stretched out under a shade tree in the afterlife, watching her little brother, Spenser, romp through the grass while she keeps an eye out in the distance for me. Does she perk up her ears when she hears her names on the wind?

Or perhaps all those particles of subatomic matter that combined to make her unique self are dancing around the universe, zipping at the speed of light through, around, over and under all the places and people that she loved in life -- perhaps through and around and over and under me. I like to think that when these microscopic bits of pure “Claire-essence” encounter the sound of her name whispered in her mother’s voice, they pause in momentary recognition, stopping briefly to float lazily with the dust in the ray of sunlight through my window.

Perhaps. I keep whispering her name on windy days, just in case.