A year ago last night was the last I slept with Bernie. That, of course, means today is the anniversary of me letting her romp on off to Puppy Heaven.
Really though, today for me is no different than the other 364. I think of her everyday, miss her most of the time. I put her doggie beds away a few months ago. Her leash still hangs where it always hangs, hasn't moved since I hung it one year ago. I put away my Christmas cards today, they were sitting on a bookshelf, as are the sympathy cards given to me a year ago. I thought about putting them away with the Christmas cards, but they're just so damned nice I left them. Most came from unexpected people, primarily neighbor folk who noticed her absence in my yard and inquired with other neighbors, I suppose. Good gossip, we'll call it.
I did take Bernie's clips of fur out today, around noon which was about the time she went to sleep a year ago. Oliver the dog was here with me, he liked the fur. I couldn't keep him away from it, truthfully, so it must still smell like a dog. It's still soft.
It snowed today. Probably one of the emptiest feelings I've ever had is when I came home from the vet last year, leash in hand with no dog on the end, and saw Bernie's paw prints from when I'd taken her to the vet less than an hour before. In a way you want to clean them away, but in a bigger way you want them there forever. She would've liked today here, cold and snowy, snow blowing everywhere. She would've laid outside and watch me clean the snow, her getting up occasionally to sniff around. Then we would've gone inside, her black outer coat covered with snow. I'd say, "Bernie's my little white dog," and I'd fetch one of her towels. We'd make a game out of drying her off. Then she'd shake, all fluffy again.
It doesn't seem like a year, couple months maybe. Time goes by fast, and since her loss is a peretual one, it will probably never seem like a year, or two, or five. She had a huge impact on my life, I did things I never would have done had I not had her. One thing I am sure of, certain, is that I'll never have another dog that was so much a part of me.
That is why Bernie is Bernie, and why I'll always have Bernie.
Really though, today for me is no different than the other 364. I think of her everyday, miss her most of the time. I put her doggie beds away a few months ago. Her leash still hangs where it always hangs, hasn't moved since I hung it one year ago. I put away my Christmas cards today, they were sitting on a bookshelf, as are the sympathy cards given to me a year ago. I thought about putting them away with the Christmas cards, but they're just so damned nice I left them. Most came from unexpected people, primarily neighbor folk who noticed her absence in my yard and inquired with other neighbors, I suppose. Good gossip, we'll call it.
I did take Bernie's clips of fur out today, around noon which was about the time she went to sleep a year ago. Oliver the dog was here with me, he liked the fur. I couldn't keep him away from it, truthfully, so it must still smell like a dog. It's still soft.
It snowed today. Probably one of the emptiest feelings I've ever had is when I came home from the vet last year, leash in hand with no dog on the end, and saw Bernie's paw prints from when I'd taken her to the vet less than an hour before. In a way you want to clean them away, but in a bigger way you want them there forever. She would've liked today here, cold and snowy, snow blowing everywhere. She would've laid outside and watch me clean the snow, her getting up occasionally to sniff around. Then we would've gone inside, her black outer coat covered with snow. I'd say, "Bernie's my little white dog," and I'd fetch one of her towels. We'd make a game out of drying her off. Then she'd shake, all fluffy again.
It doesn't seem like a year, couple months maybe. Time goes by fast, and since her loss is a peretual one, it will probably never seem like a year, or two, or five. She had a huge impact on my life, I did things I never would have done had I not had her. One thing I am sure of, certain, is that I'll never have another dog that was so much a part of me.
That is why Bernie is Bernie, and why I'll always have Bernie.
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