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It will be four weeks ago tomorrow that Tara and I said good bye to Maggie. That I lost my special “Mummy Puppy” (as I called her) and Tara lost her Mom, her constant companion and playmate.

Tonight, Maggie’s ashes came home. Tonight, I’ve cried like I haven’t cried in weeks as the pain of missing her washes over me in tsunami-like waves. There have been moments but none as deep or as lasting as this. I started crying as I walked out of the vet clinic and have cried off and on since.

The vet called a couple of weeks ago and said that Maggie’s ashes were there. It’s taken me until today to go and get them. It’s as hard as I thought it would be….actually harder….

Her urn is unpack and on the coffee table. Tara and I are on the couch looking at it. It’s like Tara knows what’s in the urn. I’m sure she recognized the smells of the vet’s on the box that the urn was in. She came over as I was unpacking it, sat beside me, and when the urn was completely unwrapped she licked it.

Yesterday I started organizing my pictures and the few videos I have of Maggie and Tara. I’m putting everything together on my lap top so that I can put a “Memory Book” together. Seven hours later and I still have a long way to go to just get things all together. Seven hours of looking at Maggie and now I’m looking at an urn….I want what I was looking at last night, only I want the real being to come bounding around the corner looking for someone to play with. I want that wonderful energy that Maggie was to be here with us again.

I awoke last night, after being asleep, for only 15 minutes and it felt like a huge pain was ripping through my chest. I wondered if I’d screamed aloud the scream that was ripping through my soul. I wanted Maggie to be there. To be on the bed like she always ways. Joined at the hip, was how she liked to sleep. Thank Heavens for Reiki and my spiritual grounding that helped heal the pain and let me get back to sleep after an hour.

Sometimes I would sing to Maggie “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine” (not very well, mind you, but she didn’t seem to care). There are moments when I wonder if I will ever have sunshine back in my life. I know I will and there have been moments already but when the tsunami hits, it feels like they will never be there.

I spent Saturday at a grief workshop. Even though I’ve spent a significant amount of time studying and learning about grief it always helps to be at something as a participant and not a student. It always helps to hear that I’m not losing my mind and that this is a natural progression. Even though I know that, it’s important to hear it from someone else. I know it in my head, my emotions are another matter. While I felt I was processing the grief for my Dad on Saturday, I know everything also applies to my grief for Maggie. So much grief this year….it’s impossible to untangle it and say this is the ‘grief for my Dad’ and this is the ‘grief for Maggie’. We can’t compartmentalize our feelings and emotions like that.

I got a new car ten days ago and all I could think about was the fact that my Dad wasn’t there to show it to. The first car I’ve ever bought without him and the excitement of having Dad see it and be part of the whole thing. I was sad. It was one of those ‘firsts’ that we all have to go through on our grief journey. No matter what the ‘first’ is, whether it’s the first time doing something, celebrating something, being somewhere without our loved one, the first is always hard.

I picture Maggie jumping in and out of the back and am sad. It was to be our “road trip” vehicle — the one that would take us on our journey to our new home. It is still that vehicle and will have that destination but Maggie won’t be part of it. That makes me sad.

So be prepared for those moments, those Tsunami moments. Sometimes they are unexpected and seem to come out of no where. Other times, they are fully expected. Whichever they are, they definitely hurt!