Yesterday shortly after noon, October 13th, our Beloved 6 pound Bella the Bear Dog (because she would courageously defend us from the wild rampaging bears in the Smoky mountains the 3 times we were able to go there with her) crossed over the Rainbow Bridge. It has been really tough on us both but is especially bad for Patty. Bella was our baby girl, and 8 years with her was not nearly enough. I still see her in my mind’s eye just as she was, cute and full of life. She has been Ill for over a year with an enlarged heart and a partial collapsing of her throat. She has been on a water serum (furosemide) and another to control her heart plus a steroid for her throat and cough syrup when she needed it. It is especially hard coming to an empty house. Every time we would come home I would open the door and she would go running past me straight out to the Escape and flop over on her back waiting for Patty to rub her belly then pick her up and carry her into the house. She would crawl up into our lap demanding to be petted. If we would stop she would take her paw and gently scratch at us to let us know we needed to get to petting again. She was a complete bundle of joy in our lives.

I know this is going to sound bad, but you expect your parents to pass. It has been harder on me to loose Bella than mom and dad. Now I begin to understand just a glimmer of the pain parents have when they lose a child.