My Old Dog - a Ghostly Monologue

There's a hospice for sick children, in the woods by where I live and many times I wonder, just what I wouldn't give to hear those small kids laugh, and play again. It was just two Christmases ago, I woke up in the cold to see my dog had died, he was very very old. But that year, Christmas didn't come at all. We put his ashes in the woods, 'neath the big old Maple Tree, told my boy, his dog was chasing rabbits, wild and free, and deep inside, I knew that it was true. Last Christmas Eve I saw the funeral hearse, drive to the home to collect some poor mother's child, and put them the loam. Then I heard the leaves rustle in the woods. And, in that quietest of nights, as I lay there in the dark, I heard the children's laughter, and a low happy bark. My old dog is in the wood; playing catch.