Missing My Little Girl and Winter Arrives

I'm missing my little girl. Our home doesn't seem the same since she left. I went to let Toby and Charlie out the morning after she died and I found myself waiting for Allie to bring up the rear the way she always would as the pups filed out the front door. It took me just a moment to realize she was no longer with us. There have been many more similarly small instances of our changed routine that remind me she's gone and each one leaves me with a wave of sadness that washes over me and settles in my heart. This all happened so quickly. I just didn't imagine her leaving us so soon.

I'm reminded of the way she was always content to be the last in line to get her treat of a dog biscuit or baby carrot. She would take it and scamper off to the front room where she would eat it in peace, away from Charlie's attempts to steal it from her. I'd sometimes go out of my way to give her her treat first and make the boys wait. Or the way she would lay in front of their water bowl waiting for me to change the water. She became finicky in the last few years about drinking from the dregs of a dish.

I got to thinking about how she was such a trooper in these past few months to do some of the walks we all did together considering how ill she had to have been. How I wish she could've told me she wasn't up to it. There were several walks where I did leave her home, sensing she was fine with not going. I wasn't totally ignorant of her needs.

Tammy had gone out and bought new Christmas stockings for all of us and decorated them just two days before she died. Allie's is appropriately white. She's our little angel now. Waiting.

I went out to get the mail yesterday and found a card from the Farmington Veterinary Clinic. I opened it when I got back inside and a wave of emotion overcame me. The card was signed by all of the staff. Someone had taken paw prints from her lifeless body and included them. It was so touching and my tears flowed freely as I stood there in our laundry room with Toby and Allie watching me. I'm missing her so much.

Charlie seems to sense that she's gone. He's not been himself the past day or so. Toby is a mellow fellow as it is so it's difficult to tell if he's troubled by her absence.

This is going to take some time.

I made it out to Murphy Hanrehan this afternoon for the first time in months. The temp was in single digits but the winds had calmed from what they'd been the past several days so it was actually quite nice. I've swapped out my 3" Maxxis tires for my 4" 45NRTH Dillingers and I've got my pogies on my bar ends to keep my hands warm. I'm ready for snow. And it's snowing. We're expecting 4 to 6 inches by the time it stops tomorrow. I hope to make it to either the river bottoms or back to Murphy tomorrow afternoon.

Winter has finally arrived and I'm okay with that.