Thank you all for the kind words.

Each morning Dante would get up well before dawn to watch the sunrise and listen to the birds and then return to bed. He'd catloaf at the foot of the bed waiting for me to awaken. If it was a weekend I would sleep beyond the usual get-up time and he would then snuggle up to me and go back to sleep.

This morning when I awoke and looked for him and he wasn't there...