A silly little mistake on my part...

[IamLEAM1983]

See, I thought that accidentally ending up on a string of videos showing dog owners going through the actual and emotional processes involved in euthanasia wouldn't be so bad. I figured "Oh, I can watch one and relate with what's going on - I've lost Whiskey and it's over a year later, now. I can talk about it without blubbering, so I've gotta be fine, right?"

Um, no. The frickin' floodgates, man. Right in the fucking feels.

Is grief always like this, then? It goes silent for months or years and lets you go on to form attachments with other people and other pets - and then it curbstomps you thanks to a few YouTube vids?

I thought I was done longing for Whiskey. I thought I was done wanting him back. Don't get me wrong, the first thing I did was run straight to Romeo and hug him like I've never hugged him before - but a part of me wanted Whiskey. I'm a bit ashamed of that, honestly. I've done cold and detached comparisons between Romeo and Whiskey before, but always while being aware that they're their own persons. I can't expect Romeo to fit Whiskey's shoes, but some of the comparisons I made were done on the basis that Whiskey was obviously a dog. He literally was my first and best frame of reference regarding the canine world.

I mean, shit. It's been over a year and a half since I've had to play my inner violin about the Rainbow Bridge crap - and I'm hoping again. Thinking about it. Again.

You have no idea how confusing and frustrating it is, for a guy who's somewhere between Agnosticism and Atheism, to suddenly find himself hoping that there's Something Out There, something of which Whiskey might have become a part. The logical answer is in one of Carl Sagan's speeches, yeah - we're all made of the matter of dead stars and I do know Whiskey's just transitioned into another level of the biosphere as fertilizer and general biofuel - but that schmaltzy core that's almost never been prodded in all of my life except for family deaths and Whiskey's own passing is being painfully hard to silence.

Fuck. Excuse me while I go hug my dog in the middle of the fucking night.

[Weirdlet]

*hugs*

It gets different. It doesn't go away.

It's okay that it keeps coming up, and it's okay that it hits those points you thought were buried.

And it's okay to still want *them*, unique and only themselves among all of those that have ever come and gone.

That was the point of loving them.

[TennyoCeres84]

*Hugs*

What you're experiencing is normal. We never fully get over those we have lost, and that's all right. Love both dogs for who they were/are and enjoy all the moments that you have with both of them.

If you feel the need to talk about it more, we're here for you.