December 30, 2011

Tikka passed away Tuesday.


Cancer.


What we mistook for problems with her hips was actually exhaustion from the cancer, the not eating, drinking.


Not using the bathroom.


Obviously she was sicker than we had thought.

I can't go into the details of the last couple of hours we spent with her.


Reliving them in my head every second of the last few day has been more than challenging. 


Tikka was a big dog, taking up lots and lots of space physically.


There isn't a nook, a cranny, hidey hole, in this house that is absent of her presence.


Everything, everywhere.


Her presence wasn't only physical.


We are feeling emotionally bereft.


Tikka was my constant tether to the real world.

No matter how bleak, sad, frustrating, happy, joyful I was, SHE was always the same.


Happy to see me.

Excited I was home.


Pulling into the driveway and not seeing her face at the kitchen window, ears down, tail wagging because I'm home is so hard to deal with I haven't really gone anywhere in the last couple of days.


Opening baby carrots last evening caused me to break down, as she could sense the bag being opened from the farthest reaches of the house, and would always come in search of a little snack.


Stephen hasn't been able to go to the farm. 

The kids are devastated.


She was our dog.


Our first dog to move on.


















Frankie is almost inconsolable.

Wandering around the house, aimlessly.


Hoping that she will appear and put things back to rights.

I've told him what happened. 


But he, too, is struggling to accept her being gone, although I think it has started to sink in.

He isn't eating.


When he isn't wandering he just lays on the floor and sighs. 


His fur has soaked up a lot of my tears as I cry on his shoulder, sharing my feelings with him, knowing that deep down he understands.


I don't.


I want my baby girl back home with me.


She will be.


Her ashes placed in the china cabinet.


At least then she'll be near me.


At home.


Where she loved to be.

I love you baby girl.


I know where you are that you are pain free.


No more tumors.


No more heavy breathing.


Running, jumping, playing.


Being Tikka.

Title Lyric: by Jamie Fisher