I wish I could have the right words…but please know that I listened and I understand what you feel. 

Take care {{hugs}}

Dawn,

Many of us have lost our puppies lately and know all to well how hard it is.  But I think I am more worried about you.  It sounds like you have not really grieved Joe or Connor.  Please allow yourself to do so.  It is not fun and it is painful but needs to be done.  You have suffered many loses in the last 20 years and sometimes it is too much to handle without help.  Please think about talking to your doctor about what is happening to you.

I hope that we can work as a support group for you. You know how much we loved Raven and how we have come to care about you very much, too. ( Funny isn't it?  We can love a dog we don't really know but only care about a person.)

Please know that I am praying so hard for you.  Finding the whisker, wow, is a gift from Raven, your sweet little boy.

Debra

gineej said:

….I do understand your loss and pain as many of us on the site.  I describe it as coming from the depths of my soul.  I look for her everywhere…..I miss all the routines big & small……I want to take her for a ride for a cheeseburger….I want to ask her to go upstairs to go night-night…….and the list goes on!!  I feel your pain, I know it, you feel like your heart will burst in 2 or a million pieces!

Dawn,

Ginny said it just about as great as anyone could. I is very hard for me to even go to this site knowing that I cannot really be the person my Cherry would want me to be just now – it is just too hard to be upbeat – and the brain cannot yet function in keeping up with the progress of so many. Having said that, know that I and so many of this community will be here for you whenever you need  us.

Like Ginny, I miss most the routines, but today was Sunday and once again, I went on a Sunday Drive and tried to feel her presence. The memories you have constructd with Raven will be with you forever as are the gifts that he has given you. Even though we cannot reachout to hold them, they are still here with us, just now it is within us.

Praying that you will find peace.

Spirit Cherry's Dad – Bob

Thank you.  I just decided I was hungry and looked in the fridge and saw a
leftovers tub.  Looked inside and saw tuna water.  I forgot.  Just hours
*before* on Friday, I had no clue he would die that night, I made my lunch
with some tuna and saved the water for his dinner in case he didn't want to
eat much.  I burst into tears and sobbed out loud when I saw it.  DAMN.  I
gave it to Betty, Raven's last meal uneaten.  God, I can't wait for this to
start getting better.  I gave mom the bed on the floor, that he died on.  His toys, his meds on the counter, his elevated feeder, I put them all away.  I gave his Tripawds bandana to my vet Tom, it made him cry.  I
even took his expensive Dog Couch and put it out in the shed and put a chair
there.  It's sad not seeing his stuff, but not as sad as seeing it with him gone. 

I dread tomorrow.  I dread having to go to work and not giving him a biscuit
as I leave and looking back through the window to see his expectant little
Pricked Ears Face as I leave.  I dread coming home as I approach the door for the first
time in 9 years without seeing
the bouncing black head in the window. 

This is what I come home to, bouncing on his leg, excited about dinner the minute I walk in the door.

It truly does help to get this out and share it with you all, whom I know understand completely.  I cannot thank you all enough.  It was a coincidence, or not, that right after Debra/Emily's Mom wrote what she did about my grief, I got an email from a widow friend.  I met her at a Grief Counseling class through a church.  I haven't heard from her in years.  But she'd heard through the grapevine about Raven, is a dog lover, and completely understood.  I have been through extensive counseling over the years for grief.  I think I just grieve more openly than others possibly, or deeper somehow because it brings up my past losses because I live alone.  This is about as bad as it gets for me, and you are all helping me endure.  Like you all did the night of his amputation when he hemorraged, and I didn't even know you then.  :)

The widow friend mentioned that a woman who had lost a dog was in a recent grief class.  And two widows were bothered by it and felt that her grief couldn't be as bad as theirs, like it downplayed their own.  I understand how the widows would feel that way.  But I especially feel badly for the pet owner.  It *is* as bad, but in a different way.  Then Ann said that the church should consider a Pet Loss Grief class…  That sparked something in me.  Like maybe that is something I could make a future goal.  To start such a class…

Dawn,

You are a good person.  You have so much love to give.  I hope that when the time is right you will consider getting another dog to love.  He wouldn't replace Raven but you wouldn't have to be alone either.  

Debra