My turn.

Dear readers, I intended to write today about Bubba, to say my piece about the wonderful family member we just lost.

I was going to talk about how he, with one "get-me-outta-here!" look on our first meeting, stole our hearts. How he saved Murray and, really, his daddy too, from their grief over losing Hobbes. How his gentle, I-love-everyone-and-I-really-mean-it attitude made him, in my eyes, the perfect dog for kids, and how devastated I am that he'll never meet ours.


But leave it to my husband to show me up.

T asked me several months ago if he could be the first person on my blog to talk about Bubba. Since he never asks me for anything, of course I said yes. I'm ashamed to admit, I never dreamed he'd do quite that amazing of a job of it. It's true, he isn't a writer. But he captured perfectly what kind of dog Bubba was, and just what he meant to our little family.

There's really nothing I can say that's any better than that.

So instead, I'll say this:

Thank you.

To all of you who've reached out to me/us this week via e-mail, text, Twitter, Facebook and this blog, you have no idea what it meant to me. Just knowing you guys were thinking of us, and that you really GET why losing a "pet" means something more to us than just that -- it's sustained me, it really has. And I know it's meant the world to T, too.

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I'm sitting here in my home office, with Murray snoring at my feet, wondering if he really knows his brother is not coming back. He shows us in little ways that he does, but he isn't showing the overwhelming depression he exhibited when Hobbes died. Part of that, I'm sure, is that he's nearly eight years old instead of one. But I hope part of it is that we're handling it better ourselves this time, too, and really focusing on trying to make sure he's OK.

One thing's for sure: We all miss Bubba, and the house just doesn't quite feel the same.

Last night, I had a dream. In the nonsensical way of dreams, I was at my parents' old house with Bubba (someplace he'd never been in real life), trying to feed him pizza crust, one of his favorite things EVER, even when he was sick. He took a piece, spit it back out, then somehow sprouted human hands, enough to show me in sign language: "Tummy hurts." Just as I did on the last day of his life, my dream self said, "I know, buddy. It's OK."

And, you know? It is. As much as it hurts, we still have peace.

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Thank you, again, for indulging both T and me as we come to terms with our grief. Back to regularly scheduled programming next week, just as we're trying to get back to normal life. Have a great weekend, y'all.