From the recording Pet Loss & Love That Remains
Lyrics
[Verse 1]
I always had a picture
of how we’d be one day.
You slow and calm and sleepy,
your muzzle turning gray.
Your head would find my knee,
we’d watch the sunset fade.
The final quiet chapter
we never got to page.
[Pre-Chorus]
I kept a simple promise
we never reached to keep.
[Chorus]
I’ll never see your gray muzzle
or your steps grow soft and slow.
I’ll never get to thank you
for the years we’ll never know.
They tell me “forever young,”
but I wanted growing old.
I’d trade all your running
for that hand I meant to hold--
with a gray muzzle in my lap,
and a love that saw us home.
[Verse 2]
I pictured shorter routes,
a sweater in the cold,
the careful little stairway,
the gentleness of old.
A pill inside a treat,
the window nap at noon,
the vet who says “good gentleman,”
and I would say “see you soon.”
[Pre-Chorus]
I set a chair beside me
for the years that never came.
[Chorus]
I’ll never see your gray muzzle
or your steps grow soft and slow.
I’ll never get to thank you
for the years we’ll never know.
They tell me “forever young,”
but I wanted growing old.
I’d trade all your running
for the quiet we were owed--
with a gray muzzle in my lap,
and a love that saw us home.
[Bridge]
If time could make one mercy,
I’d ask for ordinary days--
the creak, the careful turning,
the soft and simple ways.
[Chorus]
I’ll never see your gray muzzle,
but I keep the space for you.
I practice smaller footsteps,
the kind we’d learn to do.
If heaven chose you early,
then let this be my plea--
I’ll carry every future
that the world won’t let me see,
the gray muzzle I won’t meet,
and the love you left in me.