For several months, I had started noticing a dog there almost every time I visited.
He was a scruffy mixed breed with no collar, always lying quietly beside Caleb’s headstone.
And by the time I left, he was always gone.
The first time I saw him, I assumed he belonged to another visitor.
He was medium-sized, with uneven brown and gray fur that looked as though someone had tried to trim it with a pair of kitchen scissors.
One ear stood straight up.
The other folded slightly at the tip.
His ribs weren’t visible, but he was thin enough to make me wonder how regularly he ate.
When I approached, he didn’t bark.
He simply lifted his head.
“Hey there,” I said.
His dark eyes followed me as I walked toward Caleb’s grave.
That’s when I realized exactly where he had been lying.
Right beside Caleb’s headstone.
Not somewhere nearby.
Beside it.
The dog moved a few feet away when I knelt, but he didn’t leave.
I placed fresh flowers beside the stone.
“You knew him?” I asked quietly.
The dog tilted his head.
I almost laughed.
It was the first thing at that cemetery that had made me want to smile in months.
After that, I started noticing him more often.
Sunday after Sunday, there he was.
Sometimes he curled up in the grass.
Sometimes he sat upright.
Sometimes he slept peacefully with his nose resting between his paws.
He never approached me looking for food.
He never begged for attention.
He simply stayed near Caleb.
Eventually, I started bringing dog treats in my purse.
He accepted them cautiously.
“You’re getting expensive,” I told him one morning.
His tail tapped the grass once.
That tiny movement stayed with me for the rest of the day.
Still, his presence bothered me in a way I couldn’t explain.
Not because I disliked him.
Quite the opposite.
I had started looking for him every Sunday.
What unsettled me was how deliberate his behavior seemed.
The cemetery was enormous.
Hundreds of graves stretched across several sections.
Families came and went.
