I appear okay online, but I am not.
I don't feel as if I'm going to make it. And I don't particularly care.
I am experiencing deep, inconsolable grief over the passing of my companion girl dog in March.
I will not participate in any grief group type settings. Physically I'm not well and that just magnifies the emotions greatly.
The spiritual rug got pulled out from under me.
I went around quoting Scripture that what can be shaken, will be shaken. I received a shakening.
Still have my Faith intact to some degree. I 'know' Truths, but the carnal mind and reasoning don't feature them as palatable.
Thanks for indulging me.
Noone needs to reply. Just knowing you lovelies are here lending an ear means lots.
~sprinkleeninow 🩵
= new reply since forum marked as read
Praying for your broken heart to mend.
The loss of your sweet family member is very difficult. I lost mine a couple of months after my husband died. Time is helping. Please take care of yourself. Don't skip checkups.
I've had a dog for most of my life, since my Dad got us a cocker spaniel puppy (he also grew up with a cocker) and I loved her more than anything. My uncle trained his own dogs (collies), so he bought my Dad a book, "How to Train Your Cocker Spaniel." But my Dad had a tough job and worked a lot, so I read that book and ran out of things to teach her. I had that dog for 15 years and still miss her today.
Since then I've had 8 dogs in my life since I've adopted older dogs from rescue. And I've loved every single one of them so much, all wonderful dogs, and I fell apart every time I eventually lost them. I adopted my sweet cocker spaniel Barney when they said he was 10 or 11 and I had him for 8 years which means he was 18 or 19, not that it made it any easier.
My other problem was that I drank away my misery every time, even my first dog, since I was in my 20s by then and one of my parents got me a bottle of wine - to cope. And so, that's what I did every time. Except for the last time. I joined AA in 2008 and it took me awhile, but I had a wonderful sponsor who stuck with me. And so I didn't try to drown my sorrow when I lost my beloved Jack two years ago June, though he's always in my thoughts. And I have 16 years sober as of April 30th this year.
I don't know why I felt I had to share all that, but I wanted you to know that I've been there and I sure understand. 
🩷 🩷
We loved the girl to death. She was so sweet. We even put a huge amount of money into surgery, knowing it would only give her 6 months to a year. Not for us, but because we thought it was only fair for her—as she was so healthy otherwise.
But she passed, as was predicted. Maybe a few months sooner. 
I didn't think I would ever get over her not being with us (restaurants, traveling, walks, beach, dog parks); but we got a new pup, and for the first month or so it was empty. Now the new dog has fit into our lives (and needs us), and although we still greatly miss our girl, life is moving forward again.
Hang in there. It's worth it.
And the alleluias that follow, seem to me to be the costliest we ever offer up, because of what we go through to get to the point of singing them.
Yet we sing, because of the love shared in the past, and as a commitment to endure beyond reasoning, until we can feel that love again, in whatever form that takes.
Wishing you all well as you take the time you need.
Religious Sprinkleeninow.
Thank you for honoring us with something so searingly intimate. Your gift will help many of us.
As a broken person, that I have been given the gift of companionship that ended up being the very thing that kept me alive, is beyond anything I could possibly deserve.
When I found her at the animal shelter in 2010, I knew Petunia the moment I saw her and named her accordingly. She has accompanied me lovingly on every step I've taken in life since, with her undying love and affection making all the pain and loneliness seem tolerable.
She is here with me as I write this and I know that I will be feeling every bit of what you're experiencing right now pretty soon
I know this because it's happened to me before.
My Spook was my girl cat companion for fifteen years from 1988 to 2003 and she heard my car from a block away. She would head to the door and wait as soon as she heard my car and get so excited she'd drool and purr and meow in that way that cats do that let you know they're happy.
If I was out of town for a few days, she would drive my roommates crazy as she would cry constantly until I returned.
I saved her first, rescuing her off the streets of OKC, OK when her whisker less face wrapped herself around my leg by my friends home as I walked to my car.
She had become an object of torture for the kids in the neighborhood to hurt and tease and when I found that out, I placed her in my car and took her home.
She knew. She relaxed and when we got home that evening, she ignored our other cats and stayed at my side from that moment on.
That night, she slept at my head and and that was her favorite place to snooze for the next 15 years. I was badly married at the time and she was there through that end and every single life event thereafter until she passed in my arms in the summer of 2003.
I was re-broken with her death and the only thing that saved me then was that I knew that I really really really loved someone for the very first time in my life.
It was then that all of my pain and grief got permission to exist because I knew deep inside that as flawed as I was, as incapable of human relationship success as I was, I had given my Pookie the very best life she could have had.
It was maybe the second or third time in my life that I was "kind" enough to myself to acknowledge that I had done well.
My dear Sprinkleeninow, please ignore all this if it doesn't speak to your grief, as all I've done is share mine. But if you see yourself here at all, please know that God has been watching and please allow the miracles that you've been blessed with for all these years, to bring your grief to the surface first, and then, once that has been permitted, please know that all those special moments that you two shared will comfort you in the knowledge that they're there with you forever because each one was intimately real.
Please make her real with your grief, your memories, and ultimately with your celebration of your lives together when that comes.
I promise you it will.
Love, John
and know that your dear companion just may send you a new companion. They do that you know. In the meantime
