letting go

We had to let go of our precious Gracie dog after 8 years.

It has taken me 2 weeks to try to write this post, I just deleted 8 paragraphs that I wrote immediately after about how we loved that dog and why, and how confusing it is to feel such sadness over a pet.  I wrote too much only to realize that I will never need to be able to look back at a blog post to remember her–Grace is so closely woven into the first decade(ish) of our lives together that she will always be a presence when we look back, and that will trump 8 paragraphs any day of the week.

Mary Oliver wrote,

“I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?”
(from “The Summer Day”)

and I can think of nothing that so clearly expresses what I love about the presence of mind that dogs bring into our lives.  To our Grace.