Wednesday, July 9, 2014

The Loss of a Good Friend

I've held off writing this post for such a long time.  For some reason I couldn't bring myself to actually write about the last weekend of June, which Josh and I actually spent having lots of fun, but which culminated in a devastating loss for both of us. 
 
We were both off of work for a long weekend and we spent most of it up in Baltimore with Josh's family.  Most of the weekend was spent indulging in our favorite restaurants, including a trip to Cafe Spice for the best Indian food ever, dinner at Addis Ababa once we got back to Silver Spring, and Sunday brunch at Muse Cafe - where some anonymouse (and generous) person paid our bill!  The most hilarious part of the Muse Cafe gesture was that we'd been complaining (to each other) the whole time about how poorly run the place was that morning.  It is set up as a vegan brunch buffet, but the servers weren't replenishing the food quickly enough, so many items were out and every time something was replaced (with invariably an incredibly small quantity) people would lunge at the new item like vultures.  We felt sort of bad and wondered if maybe someone had heard us complaining and thought this would brighten our day.  Little did they know that we're just complainers and we were already in a perfectly good mood :) 
 
Though we were homebodies for most of the weekend, we went on a pretty exciting outing Saturday morning when we attended a vegan wine and cheese tasting and tour and Burleigh Manor Animal Sanctuary.  We had lots of fun touring around to meet the animals and then loading up our plates with delicious vegan cheeses.  Josh opted for the grape juice, rather than the wine (which was smart on his part ... Maryland isn't known for their wines, and for good reason!). 
 
Though we spent a lot of time out and about (mostly eating), we wanted to make sure we spent lots of time with the dogs that weekend.  We took them on a long car trip and a short walk.  Both 14 and in poor health, we knew this would be our last chance to spend a lot of time with them.  Unfortunately, we didn't know just how close to the end it really was.  Just a couple days after I took this picture, the cutey on the left, Jake, passed away. 

Since then we've all been incredibly upset.  Obviously Josh's parents are very broken up, but Josh and I have also been surprised at how difficult it has been for us.  And we aren't even used to having Jake around day-to-day.  We realize that Gus (on the right) also doesn't have much time left.  And even though you can remind yourself that 14 is a very full life for a pet, and that both Jake and Gus are about the most spoiled dogs you'll ever know, it doesn't seem to actually make it any easier.  I'm taking Jake's loss as hard as I would a lot of other good friends.  I will greatly miss having him in my life, but I'm so grateful to have known him. 

No comments:

Post a Comment