Family Forum / Parenting / Adoption / September 2007

Dear alt a. friends,

Many of you are dog lovers and over the years we have shared the joys and
sorrows of our furkids.

Today it is with great sadness that I tell you that our beloved Jessica (at
almost 20 - years!), slipped into the pool last week unnoticed and drowned.
My daughter and I weren't home (she was at her riding lesson) and when we
came home my husband was searching the yard for her frantically trying to
remember if he let her out the front door or the back.  With four other
dogs, things can get chaotic at times.

Funny, I kept pulling off the solar cover looking for her, but never dreamed
that she was still floating under it.  My neighbor found her and it was I
who went in and fished her out. It was sickening.

After I realized she was gone, I immediately called my good friend Shannon
W. who runs the Pines pet cemetary and crematorium. and Even though it was
9:30 by the time I got down there, she met me at the door, her calming
spirit welcoming.  That and her five very smelly labs who had just come back
in from the pond themselves.  Shannon cremated my other two and never a
purer soul exists doing her good work.

I am picking her up today and the neighbor who found her will make me a box
for her ashes.

We are devastated,  my husband full of guilt even though it was an accident.
She really got around quite well and loved being outside walking up and down
the yard with the others.

She now joins Teddy and Hadji at the foot of the bridge. They were the
original "three pack".  The ones who, like kids, I thought you could just
"add another".  So many, many years ago that was.  Another lifetime, really.

Free of age, the pain of arthritis, and blindness.  I see her leaping over
the meadow in hot pursuit of the frisbees she loved.

Rest in peace, my excellent friend.  Wait for me and tell the others I will
be coming someday.

(the)duckster