It's been exactly a week today.
There are moments when I feel like it's still happening, and I'm pretty sure that my heart will actually physically break from the hurt of it, and then at other times it feels like it's been a thousand years ago.
Silly, isn't it, to be so completely gutted over the passing of...a dog? You would think that I have lost all rational perspective and am finally, once and for all, going round the bend. Dogs don't live forever. They get sick and they die, just like we do. It's the circle of life, the passage of time, etc etc etc.
But my brain has apparently lost the ability to convince my heart that things like this happen and we get through it, and I am mourning every loss (Mom, Dad, Uncle Connie, Dr. Dan...) along with missing Stewey.
What was it that Queen Elizabeth said during a rough patch? Something about a horrible year (I can't remember the Latin at the moment). Well, I suppose that 2016 is going to go down in my own little history book at a horrible year indeed. I lost my sister, the last little bits of my health (both physical and mental?), the love of my life, and every other thing that made me...me. I'm thinking that January 1, 2017 just can't get here soon enough for Yours Truly.
But first, there are thousands of things to be thankful for. Like the autumn light that still insists on coming in the back windows. Or the hundreds of comments and notes and prayers and virtual hugs that have (literally) saved me. The best gift came on Friday when I got the call that Stewey's ashes were ready to be picked up. I had been dreading and fretting about a proper resting place for him, and when I opened the plain cardboard box, there it was. A lovely little carved wooden box with Stewey inside and daisies carved on the top. I don't know if the vet or the pet mortuary knew about Stewey's connection to and love of daisies, but there they are. Right where we can both enjoy them.
I've promised myself that I will just feel it and that I will move through this in my own time, and so far that is working. The laundry has somehow gotten done and the dishes have somehow made it to the dishwasher, and the house is somehow still standing. Vaceila has a few more beads and the television has been on and off as I stumble from day to day and night to night and just try to figure it out.
Thank you, dear friends, for your love and patience.
With much love,
Coni