I will always love you

For those of you who follow me on instagram, by now you know that Jolene has gone to live with another family. It was a hard pill to swallow, but we keep on going over the reasons as to why that choice was best for her and us.  It's still pretty raw; I expect to see her when I walk into our home, or see her come out of the room from a nap.  She was and is, after all, our first child but talking about it is the only way I can think of helping me deal with the sadness of missing her. 

She made me a mother.  Because of her, I always carried a "diaper bag" with all of the essentials - water, bowls, because she gets hot easily, snacks, toys, cleaning towels (incase we stumbled upon a good but muddy field to run in).  I constantly scheduled her vet appointments, made sure to givce her her monthly medicine for heart worm and fleas/ticks.  If I or her spotted her friends across the street, we'd run out for a playdate and I made friends in the neighborhood with those other dog parents.  Gave her baths and taught her to tolerate them because they're not as scary as she first thought.  We taught her games and tricks and words (sounds) for specific objects.  All of this is not dissimilar to what we're doing and going through now with Jack.  

And so, in honor of our girl, whom we had the privilege of having be a part of our lives from December 7th, 2016 until April 7th, 2019 I'm sharing the most recent photos taken of her just before we gave her a new, better life at a farm with all of the land to play in without children, and a letter I wrote to her.

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