They Are Always With Us
Today marks 11 years and 11 months since we lost Moree. He has been gone longer than he was alive. (That was true starting 2 years ago since we lost him shortly before he turned 10.)
November 7, 2009, is not a date that is locked in my head, for which I am grateful. But I was reading through my old blogs yesterday and the very first post on Life by Pets is called “Let’s Start with the Hard Stuff” and talks about losing Moree. It was in one of those early posts there that I noted the date we lost him.
That’s not to say I did not know it was coming up. We found Junebug in the shelter on November 16, 2009. And since November 16 also happens to be my mother’s birthday, that date is locked in my head. And I knew we did not go even two weeks between losing Moree and being at the shelter. (It was 9 days, apparently.) We were miserable. Smokey was miserable. Junebug’s puppy energy was something we all needed to heal.
Going through Life by Pets, I relived a lot of loss. As I said, I started it by talking about losing Moree. I then relived losing Smokey (16 months after we lost Moree), and Howie, our Old Dog Haven foster dog. I saw my posts about friends losing their beloved pets, Molly and Hayes. I saw pictures of my mom’s dog Lucy, my brother’s dog Copper, and another friend’s dog, Harvey, all of whom have since left us.
11 years and 11 months since we lost Moree. 10 years and 7 months since we lost Smokey. And a picture of them, my favorite wedding photo, is on the front of my phone case. Junebug and Larry are on the back. Because no matter what, “my boys” will always be part of me. No number of years passing since they were in my life will erase the years they were here.
Nothing will take away the memories of asking Moree where his ball was (because we honestly could not remember) to have him open one of the drawers under our bed to pull out his ball. Nothing can get rid of the relief we felt upon realizing Smokey was okay after he jumped out our open second-story window to get to us in the driveway, because we were calling, and the door to the house was closed. (We were calling Moree, who had gone walkabout, but that did not seem to matter to Smokey.) Nothing will erase the sight of old, deaf, 30lb Howie (gone 8 years and 6 months) playing with a Mastiff puppy. Those moments are with me forever. The love I felt for and from my dogs will never go away.
I was in Life by Pets yesterday looking for a specific piece of information. What I found were memories. Yes, there was a lot of loss, but also so much joy. It reminded me of why I titled the blog Life by Pets. I had been thinking of the phrase “by the numbers”, but knew that I wanted to look back on my life not by the numbers (despite also writing a personal finance blog), but by the pets that shared my life and took up permanent residence in my heart.
I will always miss my devil dog Morree, my Smokey angel, and grumpy old man Howie. But I will also always be grateful for what they brought to my life. They were very good boys.
