Concateknit: Remembering My Girl

It's hard to believe that it's been 15 months since I lost my sweet Allie. Not a day goes by that I don't think of her or that I don't miss her.

I can speak of her without crying now, usually. Mike and I can remember her with love and laughter instead of heartbreaking pain. I've learned how to get along without her, but the hole her death left is still there, and honestly, still raw.

On the day she died, my best friend's daughter brought me wild flowers and I put them in a small little vase that Mike and I got for our wedding but I had never used. I left the flowers on my nightstand until they were dry and all the water was evaporated from the vase. I couldn't touch them, couldn't get rid of the flowers because it seemed to me that such an act would make her death more final than I could stand.

When Mike and I got back together in October, I finally got rid of the flowers, believing she'd want me to let go, move forward, and focus on good times ahead rather than that most painful and bleak of times behind. So I did.

Now the vase sits on my windowsill and I still fill it with flowers for Allie. Sometimes I put wild flowers in the vase, but recently I've put roses from my garden as a way to honor that sweet, loyal, funny and crazy dog while saying a heartfelt thank you to Rosie, the sweet old girl who has been in our life for a year now, keeping Dezi and Zorro in line, following Mike around everywhere he goes, and for every once in a blue moon, for giving me the tiniest of little kisses.

Rosie is not a replacement for Allie. She's very much her own dog with her own personality and her own character. She is good-natured and mellow and she's taught Dezi how to play. She has been a gift to me and Mike and our little family, and I am thankful for her every day, just as I am thankful for Dezi and Zorro and for having had the opportunity to love and be loved by Allie, who taught me so much of what I know about true compassion and patience.