It's been exactly 10 months. Ten months since we said our "Goodbyes"....ten months for our hearts to mend. And although they haven't truly healed...there will always be missing parts that she took with her, but they are mending. The hole isn't quite so large.....anymore.
I told Kevin that I was ready. I had prepped myself and sucker-punched my cheeks and yes, I was ready. I was ready to let another in. To invite another outsider in to my intimate family circle. I wasn't ready to replace her.....it still brings tears to my eyes to whisper her name....but I was ready to try to love again.
Let me make it clear that I have never, in my 32 years, ever had to put a pet to sleep. Bentley wasn't just a pet. She was our baby. Kevin and I picked her out, together, nine years ago.....she was "our" baby. She was family. And to replace her, well...that wasn't possible.
But, I was willing and ready to try to mend.
And her name is Harlow. Harlow Jean. And she's perfect. And as much as I wanted and needed her to be and look just like Bentley....she's not. She's her.
You would think that a 3 year old would forget. But he didn't. He asked about her almost every day......for 10 months. We told him that she was sick, that we couldn't fix her, that she went to Heaven.....we tried to keep it blunt. Simple. Jesus is taking care of her now.
No one wants to explain death to a 3 year old.
How is it even possible?
Will he think every time one of us gets "sick" we will leave him??? How does a 3 year old decipher the different types of sickness?
It broke our hearts to hear, "I willy miss hur...why can't Jesus fix hur, Mom?"
It broke me in a million ways to not be able to fix his sadness....to make it better.
I had to heal. We all had to heal. And now, we're starting over. From scratch....a puppy.
A FREAKING puppy!!!
I told Kev I was ready and he surprised me....for our 6th anniversary, he gave me Harlow.
I had all intentions of naming her "Bentley". I truly thought that if she looked just like her, it would make it easier. We asked Gray and he said he wanted to call her Bentley. But when Kev brought her home......she just wasn't.
Yes, she looked just.like.her.
But she definitely wasn't her. She was herself.
Her sweet, sassy, independent, feisty self.
And spending just a few short moments with her, I knew she needed her own name....she wanted to make sure that we knew she was different.
We named her Harlow after the original blond bombshell "Jean Harlow"....I love old, classic movies and secretly wanted to name Rylee "Harlow", but Kevin vetoed it as soon as it came out of my mouth. Jean Harlow's birthday is March 3, which coincidentally, is the same day that Kev brought our "little blond bombshell" home....her death was in June...which coincidentally was the same month that we lost Bentley.
We love this new little priss with all of our hearts!
And she's an absolute mess. A prissy, little mess.
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