And then there were none.

My adventure with the golden retrievers is now complete, a few happy stories, a few sad ones. Lessons learned. Lessons yet understood. Without them here it’s almost as if they were never here, and yet my life will never be the same because they were. Their presence will never go away.

I want to say more and I will, it’s just as I sit here to write, I am thumbing through a photo album of mental snapshots and overcome with memories and emotions and it’s hard to write through the tears. I am happy. I am sad. I am remorseful. I am grateful. I’m a wiser. I am poorer. I am stronger. Where to start? How can I begin to tell the story when each one of these feelings is a story of itself and deserves a page, a chapter a book full of words to do it justice?

It’s hard to believe that all of this transpired in 3 months. I’ve lived a lifetime through it all. I have been forever changed. The dogs lives have too, and it’s another chapter and a half for me to decide if it was all for the better or worse. I don’t want to judge, I’m trying not to. What’s been started on my part is done. Now four families’ lives will also be forever changed. Maybe that’s why I was a party to this sequence of events, it may have farther reaching consequences than I’ll ever see or know. I’ll always hope so.