Thanful Thursday: In memory of Sage

Thankful Thursday is our weekly meme focused on finding things to be thankful for in our everyday life - and sharing with our Oasis community!

We invite you to participate on your own blog and share the link in the comments below - or just give us your answer here

So today’s post had to be the hardest I’ve ever had to write.  Reason being?  Yesterday was close to one of the worst days of my life and I was finding it hard to be thankful for anything.  My beautiful black Labrador, Sage, was hit by a hit-and-run driver.  We thought she’d only broken her leg and took her directly to the vet.  Only to find out she’d broken a vertebra in her neck, her right shoulder and her left leg in three different spots.

Not so bad, you say.  Well, on top of that, my darling dog suffered from a skin condition every spring that countless trips to the vet and to specialists couldn’t cure.  It caused her to itch all the time and made her skin turn black and her hair to fall out on her bottom.  Because of this, they couldn’t do surgery.  The surgery itself would kill her.  And if we’d waited until the skin condition cleared (6-8 weeks) she could have died.  The vet told me the most humane thing to do for her, was to let her go.  And, after careful deliberation, I agreed with her.  She was put to sleep at 10:30 in the morning, just hours after the accident.

She was my best friend, my running buddy (when I could run), my guard dog, and my faithful companion.  She was the one I turned to when I needed to cry. I’d just bury my face in her fur and cry until I couldn’t cry anymore.  But where do you turn, when the person (because she was a person to me) you turn to always, is gone?

So, yesterday, I stared at the blank screen, with tears dribbling down my face and said, “How can I write a thankful post, when I feel anything but thankful?”

I knew I couldn’t do it.  I was too angry.  At the person who ran her over and didn’t even try to stop and see if she was hurt.  At the kids for leaving the door open.  And, most of all, myself, for not being more vigilant to realize she wasn’t in the house.

That’s when I started remembering all the things I’d done with her.  How much she loved me.  And I her.  And how just seeing her usually made everything better.  And I realized I DID have something to be grateful for. 

The years I had with her.

She was only 9, but those were awesome years and I’ll never forget them. Or her.  I’ll miss her tremendously, and I’ll never be able to pick up a Frisbee without remembering how, every morning, she’d run up to me with one in her mouth, begging me to throw it just once more (there was always just a once more.).  How she was the only one in the family who would listen to my hours of reading my stories aloud to make sure they made sense, and how she’d lick my tears away when I got to the sad parts.

These things I will cherish always and THAT is more than enough to be grateful for.

So this post is dedicated to her memory, of which I'll always be grateful.

So...what person (or animal) are you grateful to have known in your life?