Devastated

I said goodbye to Darcy today. It's hard to explain how heartbroken I am and how I miss her desperately.

We met at the Pulaski County Humane Society a little over 14 years ago. She was about 8 weeks old. I was about 24 plus 8 weeks. She had black eyes, black hair, and black speckles on her tongue. I had nightmares that she fell behind the furniture and I couldn't get to her. When I said I was going to get a dog, my brother told me I had lots of book learning but no common sense. My father told me that neither he nor my mother would help me with her. I think my mother was over the first week to see Darcy. And my father didn't last very long after that.

When she was a puppy, she would sleep behind furniture or under tablecloths, hidden. Even as a grownup, she was a little shy. But not with me. She slept at my feet or stretched along my side or sometimes exactly where I wanted my feet to be. I moved my feet. I would have done anything for that dog.

She kept me company through several sleepless nights. My father died unexpectedly from cancer on October 14, 2000. I was there to see that and my mother crumple. The nightmares came for a long time after that. Darcy was there. My mother died on August 16, 2006, after a long battle with cancer. Darcy was there during the sleepless nights of the battle and the sleepless nights after when I had to wrap up my mother's affairs. I had my own health concern that kept me up nights, not out of fear of life and death, but more mourning of a different kind. Darcy was there.

She's given me plenty of sleepless nights too. I don't regret any of them. I would have done anything for her. Except watch her struggle and pant and hurt and know that she was not all right just to cling to her. Because she had no voice, I had to make a decision. I made it for her instead of me. While she was hurting, I was sure it was right. Now that I'm hurting, I guess I'm glad I can't go back. Instead of weeks, we had days.
April 9, 2011 goes on the list.

I know grief. The memory of what I've lost comes in waves and all day, I've been trying to remind myself of the verse in James that says "every good and perfect gift comes from above, coming down from the Father who does not change like shifting shadows." My family was sure she was a mistake. She was the luckiest mistake I've ever made, a good and perfect gift.

I told Darcy she was a good girl and that there would never be another like her. I'm certain of it.