The loss of a dear friend...

I firmly believe in life animals are put in place to help us learn about death, among other things, and they teach us how to mourn and move on.

Well, for 4 or 5 days Buddy, the neighborhood golden retriever, failed to come for breakfast and dinner - as we fed them faithfully morning and night. Mind you Buddy's hearing was bad, he was older, and he didn't move around as fast as he used to, but he always came for food.

Yesterday, as my sister and I started out to run, our neighbor called my daddy over to the fence and told him they'd found Buddy.

Let me pause here to introduce Black. Black, he is a black labrador retriever, and they were inseparable. Black is a bit younger than Buddy, but Buddy taught him all the places to go for food/water and how to hunt baby rabbits, deer, and move fast from skunks which didn't work all the time, laugh!

We noticed Black stopped hunting, and only came for food and went straight back to Paul's sister's trailer. He didn't move from there.

When Paul told Daddy they had found Buddy, he was under the trailer with Black laying beside him.

Now we have grieved a lot over the loss of Buddy, but Black seems to be taking it harder. His grief is deeper. Buddy had began to smell, that's how they found him, but Black never waned, never left his side, only to eat.

I suspect Black won't be far behind Buddy, not because of his age, but because of his loss. The loss of his dear friend, Buddy.

Rest in peace my Bud-man, we all miss you barking at strangers, chasing cyclist (even though you had no teeth and couldn't bite them, they didn't know it, and we'd laugh as they pedaled double time to get away from you, roflobo!).

We'll miss your presence in the drive way as we arrive home, we'll miss the clumber-some ways you jumped on us, sat on us, and the time I had to pull a bone out of your mouth that you managed to get lodged in the roof of your mouth. Or the time to had to doctor you up after getting into a fight with another dog, or when you got hit and I had to do 'therapy' every day on your leg for a week so you'd not be so stiff.

We'll just miss you and hope you visit us in our dreams!