Izzy, My Faithful Border Collie Companion
Izzy came into my life alongside my late fiancée, AJ. She was a rescued Border Collie, carrying the weight of scars — both the ones you could see, and the ones you couldn’t. She had been abused before we found her, devocalized by a previous owner, and at first, she was afraid of me. She clung to AJ for comfort, keeping her distance from my presence.
The night AJ died, I came home shattered and hollow. It was that night, for the first time, that Izzy quietly walked over and laid her head on my lap. No words could have passed between us, but in that moment, we became the only family we had left of the life AJ and I had dreamed of. From then on, Izzy never left my side.
Through the years, she was my shadow — on every trail, every errand, every quiet evening. When COVID struck and I found myself working from home, my days as a software engineer were spent with Izzy at my feet. I had finally regained the strength to be active again, but by then, she had grown too old, too fragile. The hills we once roamed together in Southeast Ohio were no longer hers to conquer.
This painting is not a memory, but a wish. A wish for one last golden afternoon, walking side by side through the rolling Appalachia hills. A wish for one final chance to feel the sun on our backs and the earth under our feet, to watch her ears catch the wind, and to know she was still keeping pace beside me.
I never had that walk — so I painted it.
