This can not be happening...

My furbaby Ash is dead... she got away from my dad and got struck by a car. I am beyond devastated. I keep seeing her everywhere and can’t even fathom how the hell I will make the long journey home without her. She was the one thing that helped me heal, particularly since I decided to stop trying. I felt like I could give her all the love I had inside me and that that made it o.k. She made me smile with all her little quirks and I brought light into the very dark depths of not being able to conceive. Where she used the be there is a gaping hole, a horrible weeping wound that I can't see how to close. She had such huge impact on everyone she came across, all who met her fell in love with her. 

How do I even begin o heal, how the hell do I keep moving on? After the loss in 2010 and then in 2012 I thought I would ever, ever get out of my depression. I had my other fur baby Gimli, but, while he kept me afloat, I just needed something else in my life, a little tiny baby to nurture. We got Ash in September of 2014. A tiny jet black fur ball with a cheeky attitude. As soon as we saw her we fell in love, she was perfect. We brought her home in my arms, she slept in a crate beside my bed, with my hand hanging into her bed. By the next night, she was sleeping next to me. she loved cuddling up to me at night.  

As she grew up we got to know her unique nature, the way she would 'steal' our socks and my sleepers, not to wreck them, but to play gently with them while she laid on her back. When we walked into our back yard with her, she would charge your feet with the tiny mouth and hold on for dear life! she would follow my husband everywhere and would wait for him patiently to come one, and as soon as she would hear his car, she would bolt for the door, to greet him, joyously her tail wagging like crazy and 'begging' on her little hind legs.

she would run so fast charging in to pay with her brother Gimli and would jump into her puddle pool to try and catch the sunrays that reflected off the water. she was a lady without fault around food, taking time to slowly eat her breakfast and dinner... but would steal her brother's bones and treats given the chance!

she loved to watch me on the treadmill and would jump on it while it wasn't running and rub her face all over it! I am convinced that it was her way of doing 'exercise' just like mum.

She loved her toys, tossing them high in the air and chasing them down as soon as they touched the ground. 

Her one flaw, and the cause of her unfortunate death was her huge spirit and hear headstrongness. She would run out the door given the chance and she had no road sense. We tried so hard to teach her, and toward the end she would respect the boundary of our front door. However, I always feared the gate at my mother's house. There were gaps underneath it, and my sister would often not shut it properly when she came to visit. I feared it so much that last year I demanded that we close the gaps with wire mesh, which unfortunately my father removed as soon as we left. 

This time, I was stupid, I did not make those demands... I let it go, thinking she was too big to escape. I. Was. wrong.

It took only a moment. When I hoped out of the shower and I heard my dad calling out to the dogs to go out for a pee. I tightened up immediately and thought I should call out to him and ask him to be careful. However, everyone had been chiding me about being too careful, too frightened, too neurotic... not wanting to appear that way I let it go... In the beat of a heart, I heard the yelling, I heard my mother calling out to me. Her voice in a panic. The little girl has been run over! My heart sunk and my brain froze... No it couldn't be!

I blundered around the bathroom, desperately trying to get dressed. By the time I got out, my husband had her in the car. I told him to drive to the vets while I called ahead. I couldn't get them on the line; my head kept repeating no, no,no,no this can't be happening!

I hoped into my dad's car and we sped off, the vet around the corner had sent them on to the next vet as their vet was not in... we hit the lights, my husband in the car in front waved his hands as if to say it is all over... no she can't be gone I said to myself.

We got to the second vet, and as I jumped out of the car, he said the words, I did not want to hear.. sweetie she is gone..

In that instant, my heart broke, my blood froze and I let out a blood curdling scream as I saw her tiny broken body. I screamed over and over, my head on the pavement, my arms around myself. A nurse front he clinic came to get us, she took us to their grieving room, where they laid her down on an examination table. 

I cried, I cried so hard. My sister turned up, my mother with my dog Gimli. Nothing comforted me... I just wanted my girl back. I cried all afternoon, I didn't eat all day, I was given a sleeping pill and I fell into an uncomfortable dream. I woke up this morning with the gaping hole in my soul. I was able to function, and went to my husband's family's Christmas party. Many said their condolences, my sister in law gave me a beautiful star to put on the Christmas tree to commemorate her beautiful, but short life. I managed to live through it but only just. I got home and opening the door and not seeing her there was one of the hardest things I've had to do... I cried some more, slept and I woke once again with the gaping hole. I still haven't managed a proper meal, to eat would be obscene. I just can’t stomach it.

I feel dead, yet the pain tells me I am alive. I see her everywhere. Sometimes I mistake the other dogs for her for just a moment… but for that moment, my heart flutters and I can feel my breath catching. The irrational thought resonating loud and clear… she is home! Only to realise this is impossible.

So again, another night, another table taken; the hope of sleep.

I thought I could not feel pain like I felt when I lost my unborn baby, ever again, but this pain, is the same if not worse. This child of mine, while not human, was never the less my child. She embodied all my hopes and dreams. She gave an outlet to the love I had so desperately repressed in my heart. She made the mother in me finally feel peace.

Now I must face another horror… the horror of this new loss.

My little Ash, where you used to be there is a whole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around during the day and falling into at night. I miss you baby girl, I miss you so very much.