Grief is a Cloud...

With 2014 coming to an end, I am reflecting, maybe a little too much, about the highs and lows of this year......

My health has so drastically declined in 2014 but the only event that makes me cry is the loss of my sweet dog Cloud.  It's been almost a year since he had to go and even now as I type, I am sobbing.  

Here's why:

Cloud was just one of those dogs that came directly from heaven to take care of me.

During his puppy months, he was my companion while I struggled through a divorce and learned to live again.   Even as a puppy, he was an old soul.  I swear he could look right through to my heart and feel my pain.  He learned good manners just by observation and was simply & naturally amazing on a game bird hunt.

Cloud moved with Fred and I to our farm in 2000 and he was the Alpha male here for 14 years.  But, he was soft as a fluffy cloud when appropriate.   Even as he grew old, other dogs respected his space. I still look for him on my porch step, stretched out in his favorite sunny part of the yard, or walking to & from the pond to take a quick swim.  I cannot come to terms with living here without him watching over me.

Cloud was devoted to the point that he began to struggle to raise his aged body and walk to meet me without fail.  It became routine that I would meet him halfway because he couldn't move so well.  He liked to come inside and rest by the fireplace but he always wanted to sleep out in his house. He slept a lot and ate less and less.  Then finally, he couldn't go where he wanted to go at all.  And, I couldn't stand to see him not have his dignity.  I miss his smile, his way of 'knowing' , those deep piercing eyes and his love for our little grandchildren.

Grief is strange for me.  While I rarely feel it, it comes with force, cuts deep into my heart and unpacks extreme pain and sadness when it arrives.  The shape of grief in my heart from 2014 resembles a CLOUD, a four-legged brittany spaniel with freckles, a pink nose and a heart of gold.