New Chapter

First of all, thank you all who commented on my losing Luke. You have no idea how much that meant to me. There's a warm place in my heart for each of you.

Monday morning I attempted to go to work and try to gain some semblance of normalcy. When I left home, my other dog, Emma, was looking out the window, thinking maybe Luke would appear somewhere. It broke my heart.

When one of my bosses came in, the first thing he did was give me a big hug and told me to go home, and it was not going to count as a sick or vacation day. I was so grateful because I was very worried about Emma. They were absolutely inseperable and now she was home all alone.

I rushed home and she was curled up under my desk. She didn't even get up when I came home. I decided we needed to get out of the house so I took her for a hike in the woods near a creek. She hates the water but I gave it a shot.

Long story short, the spot I wanted to go to had people there already so I went to another part. At the last minute I realized there was someone swimming in the creek. I apologized for disturbing him and he said, "No, no problem. Stay here with your dog, I like dogs."

Then I turned around and saw that he had a new Specialized 29er. I commented on how cool a bike it was. We struck up a great conversation and I thought to myself, how wonderful a God I have that He would, in my grief, direct me to a place where there was someone who was into bikes like I am!

While we were talking, Emma decided she liked water. I couldn't believe it. The water there is a really neat gold color because of all the pines in our area. Emma walked in the water and plopped down in it, just lying there and relaxing.



After about a half hour she was getting restless so we headed home. I will probably never see that guy again but what a gift that half hour was to me.

On top of that, my bosses are going to experiment with my bringing Emma to work with me for a couple of hours in the afternoon. I can't believe it.

I really want to get on the bike but each morning I've been taking Emma walking in the woods to try to get her mind (and mine) off missing Luke. It's becoming a habit now and I suppose this is our new chapter of life.

And the pages turn...