It’s never easy when a pet passes away. At least I can say that Gracie looked as peaceful and loving as she always did in life. Today I figured I would write a post about her since all my other animals have a blog post dedicated to them.

Gracie wasn’t a rescue like all of our other animals. She was a dog my husband wanted for a very long time. When the time to pick her out of the litter, I told my husband I wanted a female and a runt so that she would stay small because we never knew what kind of house we would be living in or the size of the yard. The moment we saw that friendly, squirmy ball of red fur, we knew she was the dog for us.

Anyone who has known us for any length of times knows that we have moved a lot. Not sure why, other than that is what God has allowed in our lives. The other day I was telling Dan the only two consistent things in my life apart from God have been my family and my pets. Gracie moved to four different states with us and lived in numerous houses. And she took in all in stride.

Not only that, she was always welcoming people into our home. If you came over to our house, Gracie would lick your face off if I let her, and she would put her foot on yours to show she didn’t want you to leave. She also thought she was a lap dog and would try and climb into people’s laps 🙂

After we had to put our dachshund down, Gracie was lost without her little friend. Eventually we adopted a Jack Russel mix to fill the void left behind. Our Bella loved her big sister. She was always playing with Gracie and Gracie was so gentle with her new little friend. Yesterday the two were frolicking in the backyard and chasing birds.

This morning Gracie was sleeping in the chair I bought for her at a thrift store years ago (Dan would poke fun at me that I bought our dog a comfy chair to sleep in. She loved that thing!). I started joking with her about getting old and sleeping so hard she didn’t even wake up to chase the cat out of the house when I realized something was different. I shook her and she never stirred. That’s when it hit me. She had passed on.

I thought I had more years with Gracie, but sadly that wasn’t meant to be. We believe she died of a stroke, fast and quick, right there in her chair. I take comfort in the fact that she never had to fight cancer or come to a place where we had to make a decision. Instead, she looked as peaceful and loving in death as she did in life. The Bible doesn’t say what happens to animals when they pass on, but I do know that God loves his creation and knows when even a single bird dies. Because of his great love, I know Gracie is in the best hands possible now.

But we sure will miss her!