Pets Are People Too

I've been trying to write a post all day. I have been crying off and on, though, which makes it harder. Because my doggie died this morning. She was a sweet, sweet thing. She was a black lab/border collie mix with endless patience and expressive eyes. We've been through a lot with that girl and she went through a whole lot before she found us. She will be missed. She will be mourned.

She is in a better place. I know that our living room with open access to a couch and cool water and petting children must have felt like heaven after years of homeless living, but she's in the real thing, now.

It will be the first time that Brynna has lost a pet. Well, she lost three goldfish a couple of years back, but really, goldfish.

Services will be held tonight in my back yard and I am dreading them like the plague. I don't want to stand there and cry. I don't want to feel like the house is too empty and too quiet. I don't want to wonder what it will be like to not have to drag a 70 lb. dog off of Brynna every time a storm hits. I don't want to pick up her food and water and look at the empty place where they so obviously belong.

I don't like living without a dog. Because it makes everything seem sadder and less sure. Dogs are the glue that holds a home together, it seems to me. But I don't want to replace her, either. I don't want to see another dog running in my yard, circling the floor in my bedroom, running to the bowl in my kitchen. Although, I'm sure I'll get there.

I wanted to post a picture of her, but I don't seem to have one. At least not at work. I'm hoping that I have one at home, because while I knew that Davey was dying before he went and could snap away, I didn't know that Marley was going to go and I didn't snap away. I don't keep most of the pictures I take of the pets, because they always get demon-eyed and I can't fix it and it just ruins the picture for me.

I am sad. And I am worried about my big girl who is about to learn an important and horrible lesson. I am conflicted and guilty feeling and lonely, even though I am at work and she was never here anyway. Tonight will be too quiet, too empty, too lonely.

Tomorrow morning will be worse. There won't be anybody under my feet trying to trip me, to let out, to let in, to feed and water, to stare at the door while we are leaving. But, the next day will be better, and the next and the next and the next.

Go in peace, Marley-Bones, you will be missed.