My favorite person in all the world was a dog named Gertrude Jayne. She died last Tuesday, September 30.

She was kind enough to give me lots of warning about her impending demise and also thoughtful enough to make it undeniable that it was time to let her go.

We were together for 13 years, my longest successful relationship of any sort with any living being. She was beautiful and shiny and perfect in every way (except for that shoe eating phase when she was a baby).

The grief has been different than what I had anticipated. For the first few days I felt extremely disoriented, like I suddenly didn't know where I belonged. But, my gratitude for her life and for the grace and peacefulness of her death is actually stronger than my sadness.

I can't imagine there will ever be a day that I don't miss her, but I feel like she stuck around until she knew my life was filled with enough love to sustain me after she was gone.

Her younger brother was with us when she died. I'm not a religious person and not generally very spiritual, but he suddenly loves the water just like she did and is no longer afraid of car rides which were her favorite thing. So, make of that what you will, but it's giving me great comfort no matter how it happened.

Ugh, too late to edit. I'm bad at days but good at dates. It was Wednesday, not Tuesday. Her back legs stopped working on Tuesday afternoon, she died on Wednesday, which was September 30.

Sorry for your loss Uli. This is my 5th football season with out PJ. I miss that little white dog as much today as I did that first season without her.

Ugh, I hate this. I fell asleep crying and woke up crying, and no amount of crying will ever bring my Gertie Pie back. Why is it getting harder instead of easier? All but one of the other furbabies came running to the bed to snuggle me when they heard me crying this morning, which is so, so sweet, but my gratitude for what's good is not stronger than my sad today :(

(The one furbaby who didn't come is our youngest cat. She's not very human attached because she still has her actual cat mommy, but she's adorable and amusing nonetheless.)