Goodbye Amber

Our family dog, Amber, who was a rescued border collie / golden retriever cross, just left us as well. Hardest decision we ever had to make, and although she was 14 – it just seemed there was not enough time.

She was wonderful, never asked for anything really – although if your pocket ever at one time, even prior to washing, contained a treat of any kind – well it got the “nose treatment”.

This then is the trade-off -- our dogs never ask for anything but love, give it back 10 fold, greet us with wild abandon, think of us as one of them, comfort and entertain us and all we have to do in return is make the final, difficult decision – and even then, if we pay close attention, they will tell us it’s OK -- they’re ready to go.

Miss you girl – although I know there is an ethereal pasture somewhere celestial, that you are chasing some rabbit and waiting for the day when one of us will whistle you home.

"We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached. Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would live no other way. We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necessary plan."  from Irving Townsend, Separate Lifetimes