Coping with a loss...

I still have yet to actually write and inform y'all about the last couple of weeks and my trip to San Diego. I promise I'll get around to doing that, but for now, I thought I'd share the news... last week, Wednesday I believe it was, my parents Yellow Lab, Buddy, was struck by a car and killed. It came as a huge shock to our family, especially to me, since I had just visited my parents the week before with Noah and he played every day with Buddy. Some of you knew Buddy and some of you have only heard about Buddy. He was a beautiful dog. Everyone thought so- and I took great pride in his beauty since Spencer and I were the ones who picked him out of his litter 3 Christmas' ago. We'd flown him from Utah to San Diego that Christmas to present him to my parents, nieces and nephews as a Christmas gift. He was instantly welcomed into our family and his presence was enjoyed. He was quite a large dog- I never imagined he'd grow as fast and as large as he did- he pretty much looked like he could have been a horse! In fact, all the grand kids, including Noah must had thought he was a horse because they all tried their luck on a couple of occasions to mount him as if they could ride off on his back! The ride never lasted too long though- he always managed to buck them off. In fact he was so big that when Noah stood and Buddy stood, they literally looked eye to eye at one another!!! It should have intimidated Noah, but he absolutely just loved Buddy!!! Additionaly when Buddy would stand on his two hind legs, he could rest his paws on the backs of my shoulders and still tower over me too! He had a great personality and a great temperament- his bark was loud and deep, one that could scare off anyone thinking of potentially doing any harm, but of course, he wasn't really as tough as his bark made him sound- in fact he was more like Lambert the sheepish Lion. Like I said before though- Buddy was a great dog- with a tremendous amount of energy, a powerful tail that swung carelessly at all times from a fit of joy, potentially dangerous though because of it's strength! I'm grateful for the time I had to visit with my parents and Buddy in San Diego just before his death. He had a wonderful 2 1/2 years, and he's already missed deeply by all of our family and friends and neighbors alike. I had a few rough days after hearing about his death, but I'm doing well now, and I'm thankful that I have my memories of him to reflect upon when I miss him. It may sound ridiculous to some of you that I've had a hard time dealing with the loss, but if you know my family, especially my dad, you'll understand that our pets are much like actual siblings to us- my dad has the tendency to have spoiled our pets rotten just like he did with us kids, and fortunately aside from the loss of pets through out my life, I've only experienced the death of one family member of whom was my grandfather who was already old with age- so death is really unfamiliar to me. If any of you remember the cartoon movie "All Dogs Go to Heaven", just as the movie title suggests, that's my belief and I really believe that somewhere out there, there's a heavenly place where Buddy's taken up residence for now with wide open fields he can run through as he pleases- (no more small city dog parks he's confined by law to play in:) The following pictures are ones I'm posting in memory of our "Buddy".