Furry Friends

“Furry friends may leave our homes but they never leave our hearts.”

This verse accompanies this image for a pet condolence card in my line of greeting cards. The image is of our dog who seems to have perpetual droopy eyes. We adopted him from our local shelter when he was 7 years old. We have no history of his life before he became a part of our family. He’s brought us so much joy in the short 1-1/2 years he’s been in our family…. droopy eyes and all. We’ve always known that our time with him will be shorter because of his advanced age. But quantity of time doesn’t equate to quality of love.  He’s firmly secured his presence within our hearts, and it’s hard not to think of what a hole there will be when his time comes to cross the doggy rainbow.

This background sets the stage for a heartbreaking Monday morning a few weeks back when my husband, kids and I we were laying on the floor at the vet crying our eyes out. ‘No, not yet’ I pleaded, ‘we haven’t had enough time with him yet.’ We had a decision to make: our dog was very sick. We could try to save him or we could say goodbye now before he suffered anymore. No one could know the tradeoff of time for pain. ‘Who am I to play God?’ I thought.

At that very minute of despair, we received a text from our ‘neighbors’ who were no longer our neighbors but who will always be like family to us. Their fur baby, who had felt like our fur baby, had crossed the doggy rainbow. Dear God, more tears. The words through their pain solidified our decision:  “Nothing we didn’t do or wouldn’t have done to keep him with us as long as he wasn’t made to suffer. “

Fast forward 3 weeks. Our dog is home with us. He is healing, he is getting stronger and he is getting back to his old self again. It has been a labor of love, resources, time, energy, fear and hope. We have been given the gift of time to express our love for him. It has highlighted the importance of appreciating each and every day knowing that there is never a promise for tomorrow.

And of course, you know what card I sent our friends. This one. It came full circle.