brown-eyed girl
June 28, 2007

Raji died yesterday.

She was looking and acting fine when I left for work at six am. Did all her business, ate, drank, took her tummy pill and her joint supplement, saw me to the door and gave me bye-bye cuddles�the whole morning routine.

When Spouse dropped by the house at 10:30 to pick up the wallet he�d forgotten earlier, she was in obvious distress, heavy panting, bad coloring, and unresponsive.

Spouse rushed her to the vet, but they couldn�t do anything for her but ease her passing. Apparently, she had some kind of growth in her throat that just blew up.

And I was an hour away.

That just wipes me out.

I was there for Noey when her kidneys failed and it was her time, I was there for Brunsie when the liver cancer got too bad to stand, but I couldn�t be there for my beautiful Babygirl.

I know she was suffering, and I know I should be grateful that it was fairly quick and she didn�t have to suffer too long, but I didn�t get to say goodbye, and it is eating me up.

She was so much a part of my life. Her picture is on my desk, and on my phone. Her name is part of my email address. Everywhere in my house I see her dollies and her treats and her bowls and her collar and even her fuzz. And everything sets me off. The radio played Hall and Oates �She�s Gone� this morning, and I lost it.

� She's gone, she's gone
Oh, why
Oh, why
I better learn how to face it
She's gone, she's gone
Oh, why
Oh, why
I'd pay the devil to replace her
She's gone, she's gone
Oh, why
What went wrong�

Spouse always sang U2�s �Sweetest Thing� to her�the part about �blue-eyed boy meets a brown-eyed girl� was pretty apt.

I always sang Van Morrison to her.

�Laughing and a-running, hey, hey,
Skipping and a-jumping
In the misty morning fog with
Our, our hearts a-thumping
And you, my brown-eyed girl,
You, my brown-eyed girl.�

Oh, god. What am I going to do? I can�t take much more of this. First Papa, then Sammy, and now my Babygirl.

How much more before I break under all this loss?

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