Why are my floors so dirty?

‘Why are my floors so dirty?’

I keep saying this aloud, to myself, to anyone who can listen. Ironically the only thing that always listened to me was Speedy G!

‘Why are my floors so dirty?’- simple answer, because Speedy is gone. He was a more dependable hoover than my Vax. When I am chopping in the kitchen and food scraps make their way to the floor I anticipate the sound of him bouncing off the arm of the sofa and skidding into the kitchen to reap the rewards of a clumsy hand. Now I have to live a life where I have to either be careful when chopping or pick up food remnants off the floor- what kind of life is this!? When I chop carrots I still, without thinking, save one piece for him. That was one of his treats, his reward for being my faithful companion. He was always my faithful companion- through movies and shows, while reading, while talking to friends and family, long nights of breastfeeding and before that long nights spent clutching a pregnant belly willing the reassurance of those flutters and kicks and even before that in the days when the dense fog of grief had not yet lifted and time lost all meaning he was there, without question, without compromise, without judgement, a grounding, an anchor and an outlet for all the love we had that we could not give.

The same with apple cores- the first time after he was gone that I threw away an apple core I sobbed and have hardly been able to bring myself to eat an apple since. I used to dread cleaning out his bed knowing I would find the half eaten cores, brown and buried. Seeley sleeps in his bed now so it is still there but it serves solely as a bed, not the doggy treasure trove it once was- yoghurt pots, crisp packets, half eaten dental sticks- the legacy of a dog who survived in the wild for an unknown time before he came to save us.

When I worked in Healthy Living and I delivered the Introducing Solid Food sessions, my number one tip for baby led weaning was to get a dog. No amount of wipe clean table cloths, mom hacks or mental Ebay inventions can take the place of a truffling, snuffling snout.

When I do sweep the floors now I miss game we used to play where he was walk, nose first, through my careful piles of dirt and I would have to chase him to pull the cat hair off his shiny black nose. I miss the terror I would see in his little eyes when I would pull the hoover out. To save face though, as soon as it was unplugged he would strut past it like he didn’t have a care in the world when only minutes before he would have been in the strangest places- shoe cupboard, on the chair with Big Nancy, in a box of colouring books and even once in the cat litter tray- hiding, shaking like the proverbial shitting dog.

Now when I mop the floors, they dry clean, streak free, paw print free. He used to sit for hours, snoozing the day away but as soon as I mopped it was like he had to walk on every inch of it, stamping it with his little jelly beans, those little paws that held my broken heart together.