They deserved a beautiful goodbye.

Arthur arrived in a cardboard box with air holes, at the airport in February, and immediately fell asleep across both our feet. We stood there for a long time, afraid to move. That was Arthur: unassuming in arrival, absolute in effect. He had twelve years of mornings with us, and he took each one seriously.

He was a golden retriever in the way that certain people are golden. Not in temperament, though he was that too, but in quality. He had opinions about the back seat versus the front. He had a very specific way of asking for the good biscuits versus the ordinary ones. He knew when you were sad before you did, and he took it upon himself to do something about it, which usually meant resting his entire considerable weight against your legs until the weight of him became, somehow, a comfort.

What Arthur gave us is difficult to name exactly. Presence, partly. Constancy. The sense that someone was always glad to see you. Not because they had to be, not out of obligation, but because you were the fact around which his whole world organized itself. He loved fiercely and without reservation, and he expected the same in return, which we gave him, which we are still giving him now.