It’s been seven days. Seven days,  since I held your paw as you took your last breath. Seven days since I felt your body go limp in my arms.

I held you like I did so many times before.

After heartbreak, after finding true love, during wedding day gitters, as I mourned the loss of a baby, while I fought with morning sickness, as I waited for labor… we have been through it all together!

You watched over sleeping babies, let tiny toddlers wrestle you, attended countless tea parties in your Sunday best, played baby dolls, taught kids to walk/drive, and listened to them learning how to read.

You slept next to them every night. Watching over them, comforting them after bad dreams. Never leaving their side!

You were always there, underfoot. Waiting.

In the last days we had together, you did not recognize me. To tell you the truth, I don’t recognize myself through all the grief.

I never realized that you where truly my emotional support animal, it wasn’t a lie I had only told my landlord in college. You honestly filled that role over the years.

Part of my heart is missing, Seven days later.

Seven nights in a row I have comforted kids who miss their security blanket of sorts. Seven nights in a row I have wiped away tears when they reach for you in the middle of the night and you are not there.

It’s been seven days since I have held you in my arms.  In my heart I have a life time of memories