What I Do About Loss

It's been a rough month or so. It all started when my little schnauzer, Trey, was following me up the stairs, you know like velcro dogs do. I turned around and gave him a quick scratch under the chin like he likes. That's when I noticed two little lumps on his neck. I felt them for a moment, muttering under my breath, "well that doesn't feel right," and then went about my day. The next day I called the vet and to make a long, painful story short, it was determined that Trey had lymphoma, a very aggressive form of cancer.

It went from oh-that-doesn't-feel-right, to three weeks later taking him for the last time to the Vet for a quiet push across the Rainbow Bridge.

As you can imagine, the grief of losing one of my best friends has taken its toll on everything else in my life. I found myself completely unable to do any writing. Sitting down at my computer would just remind me of the fuzzy foot rest I always had at my feet and the random pictures in my computer containing a face or tail or leg of Trey, always in the background, always part of the family.

So I threw myself into some art projects. My sister-in-law, Brittany, replaced all of the old, wooden windows in her house a few months ago. While visiting her one day, I saw that she'd taken some of the old windows and hung them on her walls. They looked awesome and rustic and I asked if she had any more. Yup.

So I took these...


and turned them into these...








I still have one more window to fill and currently have a watercolor in the works starring my youngest son as a toddler staring out the window with his gray, fuzzy friend, Mr. Trey-Trey.

The thing is, a few days ago I was finally able to open my laptop and continue the mountains of work I'd been neglecting. I guess time does heal wounds, or at least numbs them enough to help us continue on. And cathartic art projects help too.

I have Trey's collar hanging above my desk and I'm still prone to weeping if I sit and think too long about his soft ears or his waggling tail (there may or may not be tears wetting my keyboard right now), but at least I'm able to get back to work and do things like signing my three book contract *damp grin* and editing, editing editing.



P.S. Since things have been generally sucky, I did finally manage to get the free book MONARCH out to the respective winner but I did it without any fanfare (I haven't been in the mood for fanfare). In fact I simply drew the name out of a hat (a black fedora I borrowed from my long-haired preteen), contacted the winner and sent it to them in the mail. Sorry, folks, the contest is over. There was a lucky winner who is now happily caressing their not so new, well-loved copy. :)