Hi Debbie,
Thank you so much for your kind, thoughtful reply. Today's been really hard, Sundays are always 'our' day, my husband, myself and our 3 dogs. Today is our first Sunday without our Trixie, and we're all struggling to get through it. Megan our 8 yr old yellow lab has never known life without Trix, she's been really down since Trix went on Tuesday. We kept Trixie here overnight after the vet put her to sleep - so that we could say our goodbyes and tell her [as we've told her throughout her life] how special she is to us and how much we loved her. It also gave Megan and Lula [our 3 yr old jack russell] the chance to hopefully realise what had happened to Trixie and to say their own goodbyes in their own ways. Megan acted very strangely at seeing Trixie's lifeless body, she seemed to be avoiding looking at Trix and only glanced at her fleetingly and then looked away again. She only did this a few times. I don't think Meg's realised Trixie's gone. Seeing how down Meg is just adds to our heart break. Lula did the sweetest thing on seeing Trix after she'd passed - she walked over to her, sniffed Trixie's little nose, eyes and ears, then licked her face so gently. The next morning Trixie was taken to a lovely local family run pet crematorium. I broke down the moment my husband took her out through the front door, I'd let her go the day before when the vet put her to sleep, then I had to let her go again.
Everyday the loss is getting harder to deal with. I try to be strong for the sake of my husband and for Meg and Lula, but it's so hard to fight back the tears. I can't accept that she's gone, I can't imagine having to live the rest of my life without her by my side. I feel incomplete. I don't want to eat, eating seems so trivial when I feel like this and yet something makes me eat. I feel that I just want to sleep and not wake. I'm sorry to be so dperessing but that's how I feel.
I lost Candy, my 12 yr old lab-cross nearly 9 years ago and I KNOW I was deeply upset at her loss, but I don't know if it hit me as hard back then, or if the memories of the loss have faded? I seem to be in one of 2 different states right now, either thinking constantly about Trixie's life and her passing, or I try to distract myself with something only to have the thoguth that she's gone come up and hit me like a ton of bricks. When that happens it's like learning for the first time that she's gone again.
I really dont know how i'm going to get through this greif, and I don't say that as the cliche that it sounds like - I mean I really don't know HOW. Maybe someone can help? I've bought 2 books today on Amazon, When Your Pet Dies: A Guide to Mourning, Remembering and Healing by Alan Wolfelt and The Loss of a Pet by Wallace Sife. I hope I'll find something within the pages that'll help.
This afternoon I turned a small triangluar border in one corner of our small garden into "Trixie's Garden" and I want to add some lilac coloured pansies to fill it with colour. We had a whole boder filled with these particular pansies years ago, and we have home video footage of Trixie wandering through the flowers when she was a pup, in that careless, carefree way that puppies [with no regard for the effort you've gone to to make your garden look pretty] do. What I'd give to have her trample the flowers in the garden now :(
Thanks for listening
Jaq x