It’s been thirteen days since we said goodbye. Thirteen days since I last gave you snuggles, kisses, rubbed your ears, smothered you with love and told you that you were the “super duperest.” My sweet girl, I miss you so much. I wish that you were still here.

The house has not been the same since we let you go. The silence is deafening. Painfully deafening. I still check the couch thinking that you will be curled up there, sleeping the day away. I still close the bathroom door every night just in case you decided to go roaming in the middle of the night. I hear your harness jingling. I thought I heard your coughing last week. You aren’t there. Just my imagination manifesting you. I don’t want this to be real. The bed is strangely large without you right there in the middle. I still go to check on you in the middle of the night. You aren’t there either.

I miss everything about you. I miss your obstinance. I miss your sundowning laps. I’d give anything to tell you to just lay down and rest your legs right now. That you can’t keep going up and down the stairs. I miss it being 8pm and you, ready for bed, stand on the landing and look at me, with that look of “come on, Mom. I’m ready.” I wish that you were here to bully me to bed. Instead I avoid going to lay down early because I know that you are not there. Oh, how I wish that you were there, sawing logs with your puppy snores.

I miss our walks every day. The “sniffaris” where every blade of grass got your meticulous attention. Our walks were slower these last few months, but they were still ours. It was our time together, where, for the briefest moment, everything was normal and it was a glimmer of the young pup that wandered into our yard all those years ago.

Maggie, Magdog, Maggiekins, Mags, Margaret…you were the absolute BEST girl. I will never know what your first year of life was like before us, but I do know that the last thirteen years have been wonderful with you. You protected us, made us laugh, but most of all…you loved us. Fiercely, loyally, unconditionally.

We will love you ALWAYS. You have left an infinite trail of paw prints on our hearts that will last forever.

Thank you for trusting us, Maggie.

Until we see you again, sweet girl…