While I was cavorting at BlogPaws this weekend, my husband was getting some work done around the house, a task I truly appreciate as I despise housework with the hot flames of a thousand suns. While I would like to think this was because he just loves me that much, the cynic in me also whispered that perhaps he was just buttering me up for the abandonment that comes with the start of the NFL football season.
No matter. I am still happy.
One of his self-appointed tasks was to hang some pictures on the wall. As you probably know if you’ve been hanging around here long enough, my husband is a fabulous photographer. Despite what you might think based on the pawcurious Flickr page, he spends even more time photographing our human kids than he does our animal ones, and he had several really cute ones blown up and framed to put on the walls.
“That’s you,” he said to our son, pointing to a closeup of a pudgy cheeked, blue eyed baby peeking out of the frame.
“And that’s you,” he said to our daughter, gesturing to a happy moment of her toddlerhood where she faced Emmett, arms thrown over his leonine scruff, sitting nose to nose. “There’s you and Emmett.”
“Oh,” she said, peering at the photo. “I thought that was Brody.” Poor Brody gets that a lot. They are eerily similar.
And then she looked at me guilelessly, she who grew up under the shaggy shade of Emmett’s shadow, the child who brought him a plastic bag to function as a chemo blanket, who sobbed while Daddy read “Dog Heaven” to her since I couldn’t make it past page 2, and said,
“Who’s Emmett?”
Ah, the resilience of childhood. Not so easy for us adults….
This breaks my heart. 🙁
Mine too.
I can’t decide whether this is a bad thing or a good thing. Both, I guess.
sending you hugs and stinky kisses from my doggie…
That last line was totally not what I expected. I agree with Gayle. It’s both happy and sad.
Oh, dear. I’m already weepy, and that cinched it.
I am in the “breaks my heart” group.
Everyone who was central in my life with Bailey was an adult, so I know that she is remembered and missed, if not as strongly by others as I miss her, naturally. I think it would have killed me to hear that about my heart dog. So my heart breaks for you — and to a lesser degree for your daughter, because she doesn’t remember that beautiful Emmett love. But she also doesn’t have the pain that comes with that remembering…
Me too. 🙁
We lost our beloved Puffkin before our youngest was born … but he thinks he remembers him because we always talked about Puffkin. I hope your answer to “Who’s Emmett?” was/will be all the loving stories that Emmett and your family shared together.
You have left me speechless for the second day in a row! This is starting out to be a week of tears. (I know the memory lapse was temporary though!)
That is sad but maybe Brody will be to her what Emmet was to you…..
Emmett was a beautiful dog. I just read your goodbye to him…..those are so hard to write but tend to be therapeutic in some way. I had to write one a few months ago. Cried the whole time I wrote it, but now when I think about Jack I smile rather than cry.
I’m a pretty new subscriber to your blog, but gotta say I love it!
🙁
Unrelated to your story (and yes, I was both enchanted and distressed), congratulations on your Pettie award! You deserve it!!
Put me down for the “breaks my heart” group. Me as the adult, anyway. Thinking for a child, I think I see the other side.
P.S. Had a blast at BlogPaws this weekend. So looking forward to lots of Be the Changing! Somehow we need to get a calendar going… 😉
Awww….heartbreaking but also not unexpected and a reminder to us all to remember how much we love one another and our pets and our friends, people an animals we have forgotten and people and animals we have yet to meet.