Running Silently

This book has been a long time in the making. Eighteen years to be exact. Gary, whose voice you will hear through the first several chapters, died before the book could be completed. When Gary was first diagnosed with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia, he knew he would be spending long periods of time in the hospital. One day Gary announced, “I think I will write a book about how a family who was steadfastly a one-dog family came to own six dogs.” It was not until after Gary died that Betsy realized how much, and how well, he had written about their life and their dogs. After a year-long struggle, and after nearing the halfway mark of this book, he quietly died with family and friends by his side. Betsy moved on with her life. The book always stayed just out of her vision, almost too painful for her to consider. She took a glance at it from time to time, surprised at all he remembered and cherished of their life together. But, most of all, his book was about the dogs in their life and his profound and deep love for them. Nearly seventeen years after his death, Betsy began reading his funny and poignant words and she knew she needed to finish his story.