The Willie -Tree

Apparently I have the gift of making people cry within reading two lines of my posts. I am sorry guys! This was not my intention. I hope for the sake of everybody that this one will not be so teary.

Even though we are all very sad and everybody in this house (including the cats) is hurting, we are trying to come up with things that will brighten up our mood and maybe even tickle a little smile.

I bought the book "Dog Heaven" by Cynthia Rylant for the girls. It is by far the BEST book ever!!! This little children's book has brought me more comfort and warm feelings than every condolence that we received. If you have lost a dog, know somebody who lost a dog or if you even just love dogs you MUST get this book. A true savior for blue moments!!!

We have been trying to find a place to "hang out" with the memories of Willie, a place that reminded us of him. His urn will be ready next week but we already decided that he will not rest on top of our none-existing mantel. We'll have a little ceremonial day and bring whatever is left of our little man to the beach and some of it will go to Lake Del Valle in Livermore. The two places he loved the most besides the couch and our side.

We got this little crap (crab) apple tree last year (terrible apples, sour, hard ... yukkk) but it was Will's favorite place in the yard. He peed on it twice an hour and would just lay under it in the shade. What better place to go to and think of him than this tree. Now it's called the Willie-Tree and this is what we did with it.

Lillie had the idea and we were all right on board with it. I am so glad she came up with this!

Both of the girls chose wind chimes and we hung them close to the bottom. Lillie deeply believes that Willie comes back and checks on us. The thought behind this is that whenever the chimes sing it's Willie, invisibly, visiting and checking on us. You don't know how my heart skips when I hear these chimes, it's totally crazy!
I just want to sit there are wait for the sound .

L found this angel at a thrift store and she immediately knew what to do with it. We hung Willie's name tag on it and added a little vase on the back so we can leave a flower for him. This morning at 8:00 AM I was laying in front of the Willie-Tree with my mom's Tupperware veggie carving knife (yes they have those) carving his name and dates into the tree. 

This tree will move with us wherever we go, I swear this!
I know this sounds crazy but he fertilized this thing so much ... there is a whole lot of my Willie in this tree (I am sure DNA testing would detect the ammonia in the bark).

Lulu chose the Angel Chime ... so very fitting. 

This tree is the most favorite place of all of us to hang out at right now. The Ls have their pick-nick blanket in front of it and play on it all day. Lillie keeps telling us she hears him barking from heaven ... if you ever heard him bark (Carol, you can attest to that :) it could be very well true. 

I hope we all can go back to a somewhat more normal routine and happier days soon. Every day it gets a little bit better.  Coming home is very hard. I miss his little happy face, the wagging tail and the happy bark! I feed the cats at night and I miss filling his bowl with stinky dog food just to watch him steal the cat food right in front of my eyes. I catch myself thinking I need to race home and feed him or take him outside. 

His brush was full with hair. I pulled it out and packed it in a bag. Every night before I go to bed I pet it and I smell his stinky toys. L keeps pulling it out and when I ask her what she is doing she says "just petting Willie".
 I placed a heavy heating pillow on my bed, at the bottom of my feet on top of our blanket. If I close my eyes it feels like he is laying there like always. I know this sounds absolutely insane to every other normal person out there but this all helps quite a bit. It truly is a process, one I have never gone through before and one don't want to endure again (but I guess we don't have a say in this.)

I hope the next posts will be better, more easier and less tear teasing. One of those days we'll have silly dress-up pictures, craft projects and funny comments again. The girls are very quiet right now. They talk about him a lot and they fall apart for no obvious reasons. But at least they have this picture of him being in this wonderful place and they infect me with it over and over again. My friend Kevin said "kids are pure, they cut out all the bullshit adults throw at you". It's so true. For them things are black or white, good or bad, sweet or sour.

 Life is so much easier this way.  If you are good you go to heaven and if you are bad you go to jail.
End of story.

Enough for today, my heating pillow is calling me and my zip-lock bag is ready for the nightly sniff.

I hope this post was better. If not please do let me know. I will contact Kleenex for some business talk. Maybe I can write little slogans for them for the Kleenex boxes to increase the sale of their products.
Maybe even a book? There could be "buy a book get two boxes of  Kleenex free" deal.
The possibilities are endless :)