[Xena's Daddy]

Thanks everybody for the kind words & support!!! It means a lot coming from fellow Rottie owners! Only you guys can TRULY understand what this must be like for us right now................

Today was a very unproductive day at work. They should give the same 3-days off as they do for Humans................I spent a good part of the day searching the internet for a suitable way to memorialize Xena. She's being cremated, so I basically needed to find an urn. But something nice, which isn't too hard to find, but I wanted to make sure it would be fitting for her to spend eternity in. That proved to be a little more difficult. I finally found something though, now I'm trying to E-mail the picture to the manufacturer. Xena's portrait will be Laser Etched onto a Red Alder Wooden Urn. The back will have a nice poem, (The Last Battle) which seemed to be very fitting for our situation. It will arrive sometime AFTER Xena gets home, but that's the only way to do this right. They send the cremains home in a decorative tin, so that's where she'll be for the first week or two..........whatever it takes!!

Coming home tonight was very different, which I think goes without saying. There is an eerie emptiness in my house. It's almost 'quieter' somehow (?) I mean, aside from the obvious lack of the enthusiastic greeting, if she were laying down, it should be the same level of quiet, no? But this just feels 'different'. It's almost like her absense carries through the home in an invisible way. Like I can just 'feel' that she's not here. I'm actually not looking around for her or anything, or expecting her to come down the hallway.......it is just so obvious that she's no longer with me.

Yesterday, whenI got home from the Vet's office, the strangest thing happened........I was looking out the sliding glass doors to the backyard when I noticed something I could not remember ever seeing before; There was a squirrel sitting about 4-feet from the door. Next to him was a bird. Could they 'tell' somehow that she wasn't here anymore??? It was only a 1/2 hour ago.....I went to the front door next, and there was another squirrel sitting right on my front stoop, (18" from the door) looking in at me while eating an acorn!! Now I suppose you could say that it's because of the lack the mighty bark from a big black & tan dog. That was my first guess. But then I realized..........I've NEVER seen this before. Not even when she's sleeping, or laying around, or in a different room.......just never!! Weird..........

Anyway, I'll keep checking back.........I'll probably need the therapy~
MK

Xena 10/9/00-4/8/08