belle and rosie

this day has been a long time coming and while i'm relieved that it's over, my heart feels so sad that it's here.

today my parents 2 old, adorable golden retrievers, belle and rosie, were put to sleep. they were 12 years old, litter mates, and they've both been getting pretty broken down in the hips & tumor department for the past couple years. they live in a house of stairs and they were having a hard time managing because clearly it hurt them, just getting where they needed to go. the decision was made that their quality of life had decreased too much and it wasn't reasonable to keep them going with expensive meds. they've had long, wonderful lives together with my family and it seemed that it would be too sad for either of them to live without the other, so they were both put to sleep today, in their own yard, laying snuggled up against each other.



they usually said goodbye under the piano.

 i've known this was coming for quite a while. i've been preparing brooke for it for years because every time we went to visit the grandparents, it might be the last time she saw them and we wanted her to always feel like she said a thorough and loving goodbye to them at the end of each trip.




brooke said they were sleeping 'in a pile' like they did on "where the wild things are."

  belle has always felt like she was our dog. we lived with my parents briefly when i was pregnant with brooke & we were moving from one state to another and belle adopted us then. from that point on, she always seemed like our fur girl. when brooke was 1, belle lived with us for nearly a year, but i couldn't keep up with the extra work required to own a big dog, along with the other stuff that was going on in my life, so she went back to my parents' house. every time we went to visit the grandparents, 6 hrs away, brooke's favorite part was spending time with the dogs. she loves the people, don't get me wrong, but the dogs were the best. they played in the yard with her. they chased things she threw. they sat beside her and watched her play with her toys. they stole her stuffed animals and slobbered all over them. they let her walk them around the yard on leashes, even though they were in a fenced yard and outweighed her by 40 pounds. they caught the ice and food bits she threw to them. they obeyed when she bossed them around and they always showered her with affectionate grins, licks and tail thumps when she looked their way. they were never too busy or preoccupied.

i told brooke a few days ago that friday was the day for the dogs to go to heaven. she understands the reason and she's been preparing herself for a long time and since i was crying when i told her, she just patted my arm and walked away. i didn't know if what i'd told her really sunk in, but last night when we were praying before bed, she broke down and started crying and said that she didn't think her life or her heart would ever feel the same again. like things in the world would never look the same again knowing that belle and rose were gone. she said that next time we're in charlotte, she's going to go out back and sleep on their graves.

it seemed to brooke that since we always have funerals for the people we love, then of course we must have a funeral for our beloved dogs. it seemed insulting and wrong to even consider going on with life before a funeral was held, so chris and decided we needed to do something today to recognize and love the 2 furry girls and how much they've meant to our lives. we didn't want to put up a marker of any kind in our house or yard because brooke would likely fixate on it and let her hurt hang onto her. instead, i took brooke out to a party store today and let her pick out 2 helium balloons, one red, for rosie, to match her collar, and one blue, for belle to match her collar. she picked heart balloons and we brought them home and wrote and drew all over them. we told the dogs how much we loved them and would miss them.

then we all went outside with our red and blue balloons, brooke hugged and kissed both of them goodbye and told them that Jesus would read the notes to them when they got to heaven. we let them go and watched until they were out of sight.

our hearts are hurting, but we're glad to have known these wonderful, goofy, sweet, golden girls. we love
you, belle and rosie.