Some Days

I was thinking about not writing today.

Because some days are simply a lot less fun to write about than others.

And today wasn’t all that fun, really.

Our littlest dog, Kipling Sunshine, passed away today.

She was eleven years old and was nearly blind and losing her hearing too.

But even events that are expected can still be sad.

We had Kip, along with her dog co-conspirators Sadie and Bosco, before we had children. And so we did what lots of children-less adults do . . . we treated our dogs as four-legged people. (Can you believe that?) But it’s true. (Today we even discovered the photos that proved it.) We bought her Christmas presents. (It is possible that we even went so far as to wrap those presents.) I am ashamed to admit that we even bought the tiny little dog a ski suit for the Virginia winters. (Yes. Yes. There is photographic evidence of that as well.)

Just this morning Piper hugged Kip and held her too tightly, as is her tradition. She calls her “Kip-ah-ling”.

And this afternoon, as we gathered around the little grave site near the woods, surrounded by spreading ivy, I was proud of my husband. (Dads get a lot of the tough tasks, don’t they?) Kevin didn’t talk down to the little people tossing their drawings of Kipling into her grave. He didn’t tell them that we would see Kip in heaven. But he talked about death. And sin. And how one came about because of the other.

Then we went inside and looked at all of those incriminating photographs. And we remembered the little dog who was once small enough to sit in the palm of Kevin’s hand. Who was always so hesitant that she approached you while at the same time tried to walk away from you, thus creating a “U” shape with her body.

Little Kipling Sunshine.

We are glad you were a Keigley pet for so many good years.