My First Love

I am the proud momma of many children - human and otherwise. I am the only person I know who actually had two cats and a dog live with them at college. The cats came first and then moved in with various grandparents. When I found an apartment on a farm in my senior year, I knew a pup was in my future. My sister caught sight of a stray in the ditch one morning, and Josephine made her way into my life and into my heart. She was nine weeks old, wormy, with a crooked tail. She was perfect.
While at GA, she made fast friends with Sophie, a Great Pyranese pup. She won the Mutt Strutt contest out at Sandy Creek Nature Center. She attended a keg party and then passed out; visited all my roommates' homes over the weekends; went to the beach when Newt and I were having pre-wedding marriage counseling; and has been my right-hand shadow for the past nearly twelve years. Today my shadow is missing and the void is tremendous.
The cancer took her life in the blink of an eye. We did not know she was so sick. I know that she is whole again this afternoon, but I don't know that my heart will ever be.
I found this poem that someone sent me when our childhood dog, Allie, died nearly nine years ago. It's been hanging on our fridge since then, and I doubt that I have read it much since she died. Today I remembered it out of the blue.
Josephine, you were my first love, and there will never be another one like you. I am so glad that you were my dog.

God Bless Our Pets
They say memories are golden
Well, maybe that is true
I never wanted memories
I only wanted you
A million times I needed you
A million times I cried
If love alone could have saved you
You never would have died
In life I loved you dearly
In death I love you still
In my heart you hold a place
No one could ever fill
If tears could build a stairway
And heartaches make a lane
I'd walk the path to heaven
And bring you back again
Our family chain is broken
And nothing seems the same
But as God calls us
One by one
The chain will link again.

I love you, my Jose.