Life and Death

Life

Yesterday, I felt the first fluttering of Speck in my belly. This is one of my favorite milestones and is particularly meaningful to me this pregnancy since it gives me a sort of periodic reassurance that Speck is safe and sound, that all is right in the world as long as I feel those kicks every so often.

Death
However, on the same day we had to say good bye to Murray, the dog Brian gave me just a month before we were married nearly ten years ago. He was a rescued dog and was already over three years old when he joined our family. Back then he was afraid of grass and just about everything else. Although we saw many improvements in him over the years, he was a fairly high-strung dog. He was protective of me and of the children when they were babies (and couldn't move around). Once the kids got old enough to bother him he stayed away from them while still managing to be under my feet 24/7. He had a long life and he lived all over the world. Friday, he started acting weird. He wasn't under my feet as much and he stopped eating. It turns out he lost his eye-sight suddenly and he declined pretty rapidly over the weekend. By Monday he was totally not himself and seemed to be suffering. We made the decision to put him down and so we explained to the kids what was happening. The girls and I had a good cry before we said good bye and I had another one afterward. Isaac just kept saying, "I don't want Murray to die," and, "I don't want Mommy to be sad."

Since he's been gone, I have felt his absence. When I ran the blender, I expected a bark to follow. When Isaac dropped a big piece of food on the floor at dinner, I almost didn't get up to clean it expecting Murray to beat me to it. I've almost turn around to go to the door to let him inside when I notice he's not behind me. It'll take some time.

You can tell he was not himself here because he would normally never sit with the kids like this. He was just too lethargic to care about us getting this one last picture.