My babies have crossed the Bridge

A few weeks ago I came home for the weekend (from my house to my mom's, which I still call home) and my mom sat me down and told me that it was time. Instant tears filled my eyes. My chocolate lab, Hershey, had gotten to the point of incontinence, and we had agreed that whenever our pets were unable to go and they were in pain getting up, it was time. Hershey had really bad arthritis and we believe had suffered a stroke or too in her past few months, but she had held out. After tears were shed and shared, I left Sunday night to go back to my other house, and Monday around noon, I got a text from my mom saying that Hershey had crossed the Bridge. For those of you who don't know, the Bridge is called the Rainbow Bridge, and all pets cross it on their path into the heavens. Rainbow Bridge Poem

A week later, I see on Facebook that my brother's beagle mix, Bubba, had gone to the vet for overnight observation. I called mom to see why, and she told me that she came home to find Bubba on the ground, lying very still and whining. She figured that he had fallen off his dog house and broken his back. Bubba loves to stand (and sleep) on his dog house. I think he feels taller up there. Anyway, she had taken him to the vet to get him fixed up. Both of us were thinking the same thing, "Don't let us lose another baby, its too soon!" A text the next day confirmed my fears. My mom had gone back to the vet to check on Bubba, and after telling her there was no change, and they couldn't help him, mom and the vets made him comfortable and let him cross the bridge. I now have two collars to collect when I go home again. I have my Dalmatian's from when she died a few years back, and keeping their collars is my way of keeping them close.

This is Hershey, and below is Bubba.

I love this photo because it looks like he's winking at me, which by the way this shot was totally random.

In my Painting 2 class we have to "paint an emotion." Boy is that hard! I'm not expressive like those expressionist painting where they just explode the canvas with paint, so this was a particularly difficult subject for me. After a day of trying to figure out what I'm going to do, I asked my instructor if I could select my emotion. He said yes after I told him about losing my babies.
So now my emotion is "loss," and today I've decided what I'm going to paint. I'll be sure and share it with you guys after I've finished it. I don't think I'm going to do a WIP (work in progress) post just yet.

Stay tuned, I've got more headed your way!