grieving our pets

[Uli]

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.