[Dailydrool] Emily atb

[Janice Black]

After a full week it is still difficult to even think about posting her passing from congestive heart failure.  She was fifteen and a half years old and was running on Pine Point beach just twelve days before she died.  Em went to school with me every day for years often being the end result of a pass from the principal for some middle school  student in the throes of  of an  adolescent storm.  Although I knew when she passed it would be tough talking to kids about the passing I had no idea how hard it would be for all of us.  Students came with cards for both of us, posters were drawn and placed over her bed and in the end her death served as a spring board for kids to talk about the losses they have endured in their short 12 to 14 years.  My buffet is covered with cards from her friends and my family all over this country.

A week has passed and I attended a conference on suicide today.  The presenter asked who had children, adolescents and then dogs.............it washed over me that for the first time in a quarter of a century  that I didn't have a dog. What a protective  factor for all sorts of emotional issues our pups are.  Tears were squished back although colleagues who attended with me knew and tenderly acknowledged the effect of this question.  Arriving home after the conference I found a large box from a dear friend in NYC containing a beautiful stuffed dog with a card saying that the dog was to be used to absorb tears until they stopped and then passed on to the friend who will need it next.......

I continue to greet her each morning with my good morning girl greeting,  leave the house encouraging her spirit to 'guard the house' and look at her bed in the kitchen and in my office seeing her lovely old bones stretched out in sleep.  Sleep well dear girl...you were so loved and will be forever missed and remembered...your work is done here....until we meet again with the eight bassets who preceded you...sweetest of aroos.  You were the best........
Janice and Emily ATB June 1, 1995-November 11, 2010


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