3 Years

3 Years and 2 days ago, we were on our way back to Great Falls with what would be one of our greatest joys in our life and our biggest heart break of 2016. I've been missing her and thinking about her a lot today. Cried a bit, but I like to think that I've smiled more. It breaks my heart knowing that we didn't get the time we wanted and hoped for. We always knew we might not have that much time with her, we just didn't know it would be that little. We had also hoped for more warning.

Sometimes I wonder if we could have saved her. If I had known puppy CPR; if we could have saved her life. If I could have restarted her heart or not.

We live with constant trauma from that night. Trigger had a nightmare about 2 weeks ago and had been whining in his sleep. I went to put my hand on his leg to calm him and wake him like we always do, and it scared him awake, and he was crying like he was in severe pain. He was fine. But it sent me into a panic with not a moment of solid sleep after that.

I see that night in my head like a bad movie. Over and over again. I see the light that leaves her eyes while she's lying there in our hands as we yell her name at her like we think it's going to bring her back.

It's same moment that stops my heart when Trigger is sleeping so hard and dreaming so hard, and he acts like he can't breathe but he won't wake up, so you have to literally shake him to wake him.

We miss her. There have been times I have felt guilty about having Trigger and not her. I've never been much for religion, but sometimes I wonder, if there was a being in charge of all of this, was it their way of punishing us for having 2? Or loving too much? Was she meant to be an only dog? At the same time, I don't know how we would have gotten through all of it like we did without him. Coming home to an empty house would have been too much. He gave us purpose.

I hope she's loving the rainbow bridge. Sometimes I wonder if she made it. Sometimes I feel her here, not like I did when we first lost her, but from time to time. This morning Trigger did the very thing that Zyera used to, every morning, that used to make us smile from ear to ear. He bowed at my feet and gave me a little whine that was also part howl, something he had never really done before.

<3

Time Passes, Whether You Feel It Or Not

It's been months. A little over 5 if we're counting. Next month, she would have been 3.

3. She didn't get enough time.  I appreciate everyones kind words over the last few months, but I still miss her terrribly.  Trigger fills a different void that I didn't know was there. I call him my sensitive sally, he's intuitive and knows when I need to hold him.

They would have been best friends. I can only imagine the rough housing and laps that would have been ran around my house and yard. The tussling and growling. I miss her voice. I'm not even sure I can dream it right.  Sometimes Triggers fur, when clean, feels just like hers, and sometimes that makes me cry.  I find myself comparing her to the German Shepards at the dog park, in how they do or do not obsess over a tennis ball or frisbee, wether their voices sound like hers.  The blue eyes in the huskies at the park sometimes freeze me and I have to tell myself to get with the program.

Sometimes I look at her "urn" on the shelf and wonder to myself how someone so so stinking precious and with such a big heart and soul could possibly fit in that little canister. Like, how can someone be reduced to something so small? I started working on a shadowing for her, but I couldn't choose a photo in the hundreds of photos and videos without crying or forgetting what I was doing.

Someone asked what my favorite part of my dogs personalities are, and it made me sobbing upset to think that I can't decide what was my favorite or how I can just pick one of the many traits I miss. Even the bad ones.  Lets face it. There's no such thing as a bad dog, just different.

You never move on, you never get over it. You just learn how to move along, how to cope, how to continue because you can't do it any other way. She may have been "just a dog" to you, but to me, she was so so so much more.