Happy Birthday to Adler

On Friday we celebrated what would have been Adler's 11th birthday. Hailey woke up practically singing Happy Birthday to Adler (as we had been talking about it for awhile) and I couldn't wait to put those candles in something and celebrate our Addie girl. We know she'll forever be 10 but she was so close to making it to 11 that I am just going to say she was 11.

She's home with us now. We had her cremated privately through a wonderful pet service that gave us a paw print and beautifully packaged her ashes for us. It was all done so well telling us who took special care of our girl during this final stage that that certainly provided some comfort. I had to drive back to the animal hospital to pick up her ashes. I waited a few days until Tom could go with me but I didn't want to leave her there for long. She belonged with us, in our home. Her home. Peyton wanted to go in with me and she wanted to know everything about that day. Where I dropped Adler off and where we said our final goodbyes to her inside. She wanted to see the ashes too, but I told her that her dad will have to show her those. I don't think I can bear to look inside and see my beautiful girl as ashes.

I searched online for awhile to find just the right urn for Adler's final resting place and ended up ordering a beautiful handmade porcelain glazed urn where we will transfer her ashes. Her name is on the back and a beautiful quote adorns the front:

"What we have enjoyed we can never lose.

All that we loved deeply becomes a part of us."

Her final resting place will be in our home amongst all of her family who loved her so much. Who still love her so much. 

We see her everywhere still and that definitely provides an immense amount of comfort. In fact, on our way to our annual tree cutting on Saturday, we saw a Bernese Mountain Dog. How appropriate we thought that as we pulled out of our town, that we see a Berner on our first trip to the tree farm without her. She was with us, we felt it.  Then

the store at the tree farm had the prettiest little ornament/frame that simply said "forever in our hearts." That's exactly how I signed our holiday cards - with Adler forever in our hearts. So I bought it and was sharing with the cashier (one of the owners we have seen for years), that this was one of the first years that our dog wasn't with us to cut down our tree as she had passed away last month. She asked me what kind of dog I had and then this woman standing next to me in line says, you had a Bernese Mountain Dog?! I said yes, we did and she replied so did they. But theirs had passed at age 3. Age 3! How would I have been able to handle Adler dying at age 3?! I would have such fewer memories, less pictures for sure and I would have felt like she got robbed of her life with us. But she didn't. She had a great life - a long life for a Bernese Mountain Dog. As time passes and I hear stories like this woman's and read more on my Berner List Serv, I know that Adler living to almost 11 was a great feat. We were lucky to have her that long and that makes me happy. Happy for the 3,984 days we did have together. That's a lot of days. A lot of memories. And a lot of love between us. That makes me smile...finally.

Dear Adler

Dear Adler,

Yesterday was our first snow. It's not even Thanksgiving yet but we already have about 6 inches of snow outside. Oh how you loved the snow. It probably was your favorite season mainly due to the air temperature. I remember how you would lay for a long time in the cold snow, burrow in it, eat it, roll in it and frolic in it. I know your favorite way to kick off the winter season was to come with us to chop down our Christmas tree. Next weekend when we go, you will be noticeably absent. Oh how I loved to see you run between the Frasier Firs, Blue Spruce and Scotch Pines. We would let you off leash and you would get lost among the acres of trees. A quick call of "front" would have you running through the trees until you found us. You were so happy then and so much a part of our lives. You still are. I want you to know that. One month later, I still think of you so many times a day. Yes, I am still sad and I still miss you terribly. But I still see you. The other day I was driving Peyton and Hailey home from school. It was mid morning and there was a Berner walking away from the street we were approaching. Suddenly, as we reached the street, the Berner turned around to look at us like it heard something. Maybe it was a squirrel or another dog, but I'd like to think it was you. And, just yesterday a new clump of rust-colored hair appeared in my workout room close to where you used to lay as I worked out.

Austen, Peyton and Hailey still talk about you too. Peyton wants a new puppy and her teacher recently asked me if she was getting one since she talks about it at school a lot. I think Hailey would call any new puppy we would get, especially a Berner, Adler. She was so confused when we saw that Berner on the way home from school. She sees you in the many pictures in our house and says Adler's picture, but I don't know if a 2 year old can really comprehend that you are not physically here anymore and then see another Berner who looks so much like you and wonder why you don't live in our house any longer.

She's growing up our Hailey. She went to see her first movie in a theater on Nov. 7 - the Peanuts Movie. She was just 2 years and one month old (almost a year younger than when Austen and Peyton saw their first movie), but she did great and sat through about 2 hours of the movie and previews.

When you were with us, I couldn't wait to see what Hailey would be doing at the next stage. But, I will tell you that I was torn about wanting to see her grow up because I knew that meant you would be getting older too and I didn't want that to happen because I knew our time together was growing short. I may not have to worry about that any longer but I do worry that she won't remember you. The reality is that she probably won't. Thankfully we have so many pictures and videos of you. I can't believe how many there are. Even if we were taking a picture or a video of one of the kids, you were there. You were and still are a big part of our family. In fact, you made us a family as you were our first baby that Tom and I were honored to take care of. I hope you know how much you are missed and how much we all loved you. How much we still love you.

Winnie the Pooh said, "How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard."
Yes, we were lucky and blessed to have had almost 11 great years with you. Thank you for loving us too. 

Love Always,
Your Mom

Thursdays

I loathe Thursdays. For me, it's the day that marks another week that we have lived without Adler, and part of me doesn't want life to go on without her. I want time to rewind and stand still so we can forever be a family in that same way. So I can look behind me in the backseat of our car and see the three children I was blessed to have in my second row and see my perfect Adler in our third row (just looking out the window or with her face pressed in between the headrests, especially if the kids had a snack and she wanted some), and my husband sitting right next to me. I felt lucky then - surrounded by people I loved doing just ordinary errands or sometimes extraordinary road trips together.

Time I know can heal our grief but it can also rob us of our memories too.  I can't believe Adler's been gone almost a month now. She has never been gone from me this long before even when we have been separated for vacations. I think our maximum time apart was maybe 10 days. Now it feels like eternity until I can see her again, and until then I don't want to forget how she smelled, how her fur felt or all of the things she loved including munchkins, rolling in the sand and the snow, and belly rubs.

I am not sure what the proper amount of time is for grieving for your pet, but I am sure some would say it's time to move on. I'm not there yet although the waves of grief come a little farther apart now but they still come without warning and sometimes they can still knock the wind out of me and pull me under. I get up because I have to, because my kids and my husband expect me to, because it's acceptable to grieve as long as you want for another human being but not for another being.

Peace and comfort comes sometimes in the strangest ways or at times when I least expect it. This past week, I woke up with a piece of Adler hair in my mouth. Now the cleaning ladies have come twice since her passing and I had just changed my sheets so a little odd that I would wake up and she would be present. I like to think of it as one way for her to let me know she was near.

Last week, I also received a package and I didn't recognize the return address. Inside was a beautiful card with the Rainbow Bridge poem on it and three Bernese Mountain Dogs with their backs to me looking at the rainbow. The package included a tiny Berner angel pin - all sent from the Berner community. I have been part of a list serv of Berner owners and a Berner database that contains all of the different pedigree information for Bernese Mountain Dogs since Adler was young but I never knew they sent these to those of us who had joined the sad ranks of the now Berner-less. I also received many kind emails from Berner owners across the world expressing their condolences for the loss of our precious girl. Yes, Adler was part of a unique and striking breed, but she was also part of this awesome Berner community. I will be forever grateful to her for introducing us to them.




 

The Kids

Life goes on I know, and I will once again post regularly about our kids' latest antics, but right now I want to give you fair warning that my posts will probably be more about Adler and how we are coping without her. I started this blog and she was the focus of it so it only seems fitting that we continue to remember her here. Oh, and for those of you who ask if I am going to change the name of my blog, the answer is no. My family will always include our three kids and Adler. Even though we can't physically see her anymore, we know she is here and a part of us always. She will live on in our hearts forever.

Breaking the news to my two oldest about Adler's passing was one of the hardest things to do especially when you are so completely shattered and heartbroken yourself. But Tom and I agreed not to tell them right away as they were just waking up when Adler passed. We let them go to school and decided that after school we would tell them together. They both broke down sobbing and my heart hurt even more for them. I know they both understood the finality of her being gone but they still had lots of questions like where is she right now and what is cremation. That was a tough one. How do you explain cremation without mentioning an oven or fire so as not to frighten a child?! We answered the questions as honestly as we could and told them that Adler was in Heaven and that she would always be with us, watching over us even though we can't see her. We read a great book that I had by chance found at the library four days before she passed called "Up in Heaven." Maybe somehow I just knew her time was short, but the book provided some source of comfort to all of us. It is told from an old dog's point of view and how he looks down from Heaven on his family and sees how sad they are and how much they miss him. He doesn't want them to be sad so he sends them all sorts of happy dreams to ease their sorrows. I have read that book many times to all three of my kids in the 2 1/2 weeks since Adler's been gone. On the night she passed before bed, Austen asked me to read the book to him once again but to change the names of the boy and the dog in the book to him and Adler.

I've tried to do many things to honor Adler in the hours and weeks since her passing. The night she passed, we went out to dinner as a family and told stories about our favorite memories of Adler. I took the kids to the toy store the day after and told them that Adler had asked me to buy them a special gift for each of them to remember her by. I also framed a picture of each child with Adler for their rooms so they can always see and remember her. And, of course we carved her name into one of our three pumpkins for Halloween and lit a candle in it for her.

The kids have handled their grief so differently. Austen doesn't want to talk about it too much because it makes him sad. He didn't want to tell his teachers or friends because he didn't want anyone to feel bad for him. Peyton on the other hand talks about Adler nonstop. She has a deep understanding of our sadness and looks to us as to how we are going to react when she mentions her. The day after Adler passed, she came up with her own solution for not missing Adler so much. She took her stuffed Bernese Mountain Dog and her toy dog bowl and placed them in the exact spot where Adler would eat. That made my breath catch when I saw it, but I didn't have the heart to tell her to move them. They still sit there today, more than two weeks later.

They say that grief is the final expression of love. I hope Adler can see how deep our grief is and how much we all loved her - how much I loved her. I knew this day would come but I never imagined how deeply I would feel her loss.

"And can it be that in a world so full and busy, the loss of one creature makes a void so wide and deep that nothing but the width and depth of eternity can fill it up." -- Charles Dickens

 

Halloween

 There was no happy in Halloween this year. It rained almost the entire day and not the kind of rain that's a light mist but the type where you can be soaked within minutes of leaving your house. It was the kind of Halloween where you snuggled up by the fire and didn't want to leave it's warmth to venture outside.

There was also no happy in Halloween this year because there was no Adler. For so many years we would take her with us to walk the houses with the kids on Halloween and this year, she was noticeably absent - at least by me. It's been a week and a half since her passing and most days are still hard. I miss her most at night and when Hailey is napping during the day. 

Life does go on, even without her unfortunately, and on Halloween, I had three kids wanting to go trick or treating despite the poor weather. So I got them ready - a White Sox player, a kitty cat and a lion, and we met up with some friends to work our block. Austen and Peyton took off with their friends leaving us in the dust so we took Hailey to most houses at her own pace. After a few she really got the hang of picking the candy out of the bowl and putting it in her bag while saying thank you. It was cute to see her all bundled up in her lion costume - the same one Austen wore when he was almost 2 (and my favorite costume to date for all three kids). After trick or treating (Austen did a whole other block with a friend because we were too slow), we enjoyed some food and drink at a neighbor's house before calling it a night at 10pm. Of course we only called it a night at 10pm  because Peyton along with two of her girl friends decided to paint our neighbor's carpet so poor Tom was wet vacuuming their rug for an hour to try to get out the paint. Despite this mishap, missing Adler and the poor weather, it was still a fun evening with friends and nice to forget that my heart was still hurting...at least for a little while.