Maybe To You, She Was Just A Dog

But to us, she was our friend and a member of our family...

Today, I just wanted to show you something:

Remember I told you the Animal ER we took Abbey to after she died was going to do a paw print for us?  They called me Thursday night to let me know it had arrived.  I love it.  It's perfect.  I'm so glad we did this.  When I picked it up, it was hard not to start crying all over again, but I managed.  Deep breaths, and my eyes filled up with tears that did not spill over.  I had to get to rehearsal, and I didn't want to be a mess.  But we miss her a lot.  It's weird not not have her running around in the backyard, or laying on the kitchen floor.  I still tell the boys to "Feed the dogs," when I should just say, "Feed Neji."  I still remind Zach to give the dogs water, when I shouldn't.
It's just hard not to get emotional.
But I do believe she is in Heaven.  I do believe she was in pain and she isn't any more.  I do believe that she loved being with our family.  She was often a little too protective of us.  Kurtis said once that he thought maybe because we took her out of a terrible situation (we really only make conclusions based on what freaked her out), she felt overly protective of us.  I was wondering why she didn't like other dogs so much.  And I like to think that maybe when I die, we'll see each other again and we'll be able to talk and she can tell us everything.  Maybe it won't really be that interesting, but I'm a romantic that way.