The healing process

It's been more than a week since Mojo's passing and I'm happy to say the grief has given way to remembrance. In church last Sunday, I prayed for strength and healing for our family and even though I'm not deeply religious we needed prayers. Last weekend was full of deep sadness and pain, it still shocks me at how difficult it was to say good bye to our dog. She made such an imprint on our lives and I never realized how much so.  Sometime Tuesday morning I got the idea to start going through all our photos pulling out all the cute ones of Mojo to somehow put together into a nice memorial. It was then that I knew, for me at least, I have begun to heal. It was still painful but instead of wanting to cry, I wanted to smile at all the naughty puppy things she did. Now I still haven't figured out exactly what I want to do with this little stack of pics but maybe today I can surf around Snapfish or Shutterfly and see what they have. The kids are doing pretty good, Cami was extremely sad for about a day or so. Mason has internalized most of his emotions and it comes out in bursts with bad choices like hurting his sisters "on accident" or being unusually defiant towards me. It doesnt help that Bill is out of town either. He's dealing with Mojo and then 4 days later Bill takes off. It has not been easy for him. Lew has been asking about Mojo which surprised me. She says "Where Jojo?" or "Jojo sick?" But she really shocked me yesterday when she said "Jojo dead?" I answered simply "yes baby, Jojo dead." So that's where we're at now. Each time we walk in the door I still feel the rush to get in and get downstairs to get Mojo out of the crate to pee, I think I'm going to hear here tail bangin against the side of the crate. It's odd not tripping over her while I'm making dinner or shooing her out of the way to open the dishwasher. I always had to step over her coming out of the bathroom. She would camp out in front of the bathroom door while I showered. When the kids drop food on the floor I'm the one who has to clean it up now. I've been looking into getting a dustbuster or some other hand held vac...I acutally would use one now! Today we'll go to a cider mill in Mystic and have a fun day. I dont have high hopes for the rest of the week, but we'll see how it all pans out.