grieving
I haven't blogged in awhile.
A terrible thing happened last week at our house. We were petsitting our friends' dog while they were on their honeymoon. This dog, who I called Lulabelle, is my friend A's beloved, cherished child.
Three days before they were supposed to return, it was a beautiful spring day, and I decided (a decision I will regret forever) to leave Lu and our Harvey in our fenced yard for the afternoon. Lu, who had been missing her mom but seemed to perk up in the yard, found a weak spot in the fence and got out.
She's still missing 8 days later, despite every imaginable effort--including more than 500 flyers, daily visits to Humane Society, a trained canine search and rescue dog, an ad in the paper and several places online. We have followed up on every lead, no matter how slight.
We have had to put up with calls from crazy, mean people, yelling at us for putting flyers up or for not listing our address on the flyer so they'd know precisely where to search (yeah, lady, I know how you feel. I'd have liked a big red arrow to know where to search, too). We had one creepy man call to ask if he needed "to come make sure it didn't happen again."
We are not careless or cavalier people. In fact, I'm usually hypercareful, and so am beating myself up even more for not checking the fence thoroughly before leaving her out there unattended. We love Lu and would not have harmed her any more than our own. We are sick about it, and to think of the grief I've caused my friend during what should be a very special time in her life is nearly unbearable.
It has been an awful time, and though we are not giving up hope (in this journey, many people have told us their dog got lost and made it home under remarkable circumstances), we have begun to reach the end of what we can do, and are moving into the period where we just have to wait. I never realized how big my little world is until I had to begin to search it without knowing where to begin.
So, if you share your life with an animal, kiss them and love them today, for my friend A and her sweet Lu--
A terrible thing happened last week at our house. We were petsitting our friends' dog while they were on their honeymoon. This dog, who I called Lulabelle, is my friend A's beloved, cherished child.
Three days before they were supposed to return, it was a beautiful spring day, and I decided (a decision I will regret forever) to leave Lu and our Harvey in our fenced yard for the afternoon. Lu, who had been missing her mom but seemed to perk up in the yard, found a weak spot in the fence and got out.
She's still missing 8 days later, despite every imaginable effort--including more than 500 flyers, daily visits to Humane Society, a trained canine search and rescue dog, an ad in the paper and several places online. We have followed up on every lead, no matter how slight.
We have had to put up with calls from crazy, mean people, yelling at us for putting flyers up or for not listing our address on the flyer so they'd know precisely where to search (yeah, lady, I know how you feel. I'd have liked a big red arrow to know where to search, too). We had one creepy man call to ask if he needed "to come make sure it didn't happen again."
We are not careless or cavalier people. In fact, I'm usually hypercareful, and so am beating myself up even more for not checking the fence thoroughly before leaving her out there unattended. We love Lu and would not have harmed her any more than our own. We are sick about it, and to think of the grief I've caused my friend during what should be a very special time in her life is nearly unbearable.
It has been an awful time, and though we are not giving up hope (in this journey, many people have told us their dog got lost and made it home under remarkable circumstances), we have begun to reach the end of what we can do, and are moving into the period where we just have to wait. I never realized how big my little world is until I had to begin to search it without knowing where to begin.
So, if you share your life with an animal, kiss them and love them today, for my friend A and her sweet Lu--
posted by nann at 9:26 AM
1 Comments:
Has Lulabelle turned up yet? My gosh, I can't begin to imagine how you must have felt. I hope she has turned up safe & sound.
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