Goodbye Lucy

The holidays were busy, as usual. We planned to be out of town for a longer time than usual, though. Wednesday morning, we were getting ready to leave, getting ready for our dog sitter to stay in the apartment while we were gone and dealing with end of the year tasks for our companies. Tom walked the girls and headed to the office. I came down the stairs and noticed that something wasn’t right with Lucy. She had tremors. Mostly, she just didn’t look like her usual bright-eyed self. I sent Tom a text and he replied that she had more problems than usual on the morning walk. Lucy had trouble walking for a while, maybe a year or so. She would fall. We would pick her up and keep going. It never seemed to phase her, until that morning.

I went to work. Tom came home and checked on Lucy. We texted while I was in a meeting. I stepped out to call him. We agreed that today, Lucy was different. We thought about what it would be like to leave Lucy with our wonderful dog sitter, who called Lucy her ‘spirit animal’, and have something go really wrong. We talked to the vet who said that, at 17, Lucy had several ‘bonus years’ with us. We cried. We hugged Lucy and gave her all her favorite treats.

The vet came to our house, listened to our Lucy stories, and sat on the floor with us while we fussed over amazing companion. She had her own homemade treats to distract Lucy while she got everything ready. We cried. Lucy was gone.

On the airplane we talked about how were we going to be able to tell all of Lucy’s fans about her passing. We decided to put together a video of pictures of the ‘amazing tree climbing dog’ and share it on Facebook and e-mailed it out. Our family that we traveled to visit, patiently waited while we dug up photos and listen to music to include with the video, instead of spending quality time with them. It was heart lifting to read comments about Lucy on the post and to receive all forms of condolences, from near and far.

Here’s the video.

It was hard to say goodbye to Lucy and it was so strange to come home and not have her here. Lily is doing her best to make us laugh and we’re starting to figure out how to get her a new best buddy, soon. I put off posting about this because I knew I’d be sloppy crying while trying to type, but it needed to be done.

Thank you, everyone, for your kind words. We are so glad you got to know our sweet girl. Best dog ever!