Our faithful pup
Our dog Scout died last week. It still feels strange to say it.
Scout and I had a complicated relationship. She wanted to eat the kids’ food right off their plates or help herself to half of Jane’s 1st birthday cake. I wanted her to not do that. As a puppy, she wanted to chew on the corners of the baseboards of the house we had just bought. I wanted her to not do that. She wanted to bark at our neighbors despite 10 years-worth of attempts to earn her trust. I wanted her to not do that. She wanted to assert her dominance over any bicycle or giant truck we’d pass on a walk. I wanted her to not do that.
Looking through our photos, you can see her in the background of almost every picture of our family. She wanted to be with us every moment. I want her to still be with us. My sadness over the loss of her faithful (and sometimes pesky) presence has surprised me with its depth.
Our four kids are grieving in four unique ways, and watching them process losing Scout has been even harder than dealing with my own grief. They have asked a lot of questions over the past week. Some have been easy to answer:
“Did Scout love us?”
“Did she know that we loved her?”
“Is there anything we could have done to stop her from dying?”
Some questions have been harder to answer:
“Why did this have to happen right now?”
“Will she forget about us?”
“Will I ever see her again?”
“Where is Scout now?”
I’m afraid our answers to these questions have not been what they are looking for. We have only been able to offer a teary “I don’t know” to these tender questions, along with a litany of the things we know to be most truly true:
God made Scout.
God loves Scout.
God will never forget anything that he has made.
God will redeem every part of his creation.
When he makes all things new, God will wipe away all our tears, and we’ll never be sad again.
In the New Creation, there will not be a single thing lacking that could have made it better. Not one! God will give us everything we need with nothing missing.
God loves us and knows what it is like to lose someone you love.
God is sad with us and will heal our hearts.
God is always with us every moment, a facet of his goodness and love that we understand more fully because of our 11 years with Scout.
