My sweet little bear luck dragon emo Pisces pup passed away on Jan 21. She was in doggie diapers across the last couple days when she was too weak to stand. She spent most of her last two days laying across the threshhold of the kitchen and i slept laying on the kitchen floor letting her use my hand as a pillow and talking to her. 

 

She waited until just after the new moon to die but left me enough daylight to take her to my parents house (the house I grew up in) to bury her as the sun set through the gloaming. After she died, I cut off my braid with my athame (and then I evened out the egregiously uneven parts with my sewing shears in the kitchen) so I could bury the braid with her. Once a Greek soul, always a Greek soul -- you cut your hair off to bury with your loved ones and you pour wine (well in Audrey's case whiskey) on their grave/pyre, it's what you do. I didn't cut myself to show my grief, I'm not a barbarian.  I also buried with her a combined braid of her emo bang hair and the ends of mine I cut off the day she stopped eating -- I have one just like it for myself along with the collars/tags of every pet I've loved and lost and some more hair from Audrey. It's in my wooden box with the Celtic tree of life carved on it. 

I buried her in her og Packers jersey she had picked out for herself at a year old (her newer one is on a blue eyed stuffed polar bear that I sleep with)  and lay her in her old bed that she'd had since she was a puppy and would never let me replace no matter how many times I tried. She was buried with her two favorite toys, her huck and her snow frisbee that every time I took her outside I told her, "Remember, return with your shield or on it pup" which is why like any good Spartan she was buried with her shield. She was also buried with toys from her closest canine packmates: the rope of my parents old dog Samson (he was old when I got Audrey and died when she was only a couple years old), the Christmas bobo from my aunt and uncle's dog Jenna (she was 2.5 years old when I got Audrey as a puppy and they were young dogs together while my Uncle Steve brought her into work, she died when Audrey was 10), and the pink spikey ball of my parent's current dog Sophie (she's nearly 8 now, she sits by me stares at my desktop picture of Audrey whenever I'm at my desk at work.) I asked my mom for three pennies right before the burial, one for each eye and the third because dogs pay their tithes to Cerberus who has three heads, but he only asks for pennies not silver like Charon asks.

I did go to get my haircut fixed the following Weds.  But actually when Maggie saw me on Weds to cut it properly, she laughed because she said she never would have guessed looking at it that I did one of those improbable movie scenes where the heroine cuts her hair and next scene has a perfect bob. This was my haircut after I cut it:

This is it how it looked after Maggie cut it properly for me:

Anyway. I miss her but I knew it was coming. As a precog, I always deal with grieving and mourning out of sync with events. The last time realizations started in the Spring, every time I had the Knowing that she and I would never again do something we had loved doing. I tried to fight it, said it was just shadows of fear from my old prophecy I had told Mikaela when she was six and having a sad about Audrey (who was then four) dying some day and I said, "Don't worry love. She'll live to over 14.5 but not 15 -- unless I'm really good and can get her through a crisis and then she'll live to be 21.5." And Mikaela instantly said, "Well you're stubborn and I can't imagine you not winning anything you set your heart on. So 21.5 it is." And I patiently reminded her, "Only if I can get her to 15 sweetling." She's been reminding me since Audrey turned 14 "you promised 21.5." And I've had to remind her, "Only if I can get her past her 15th birthday."  That said, I spent most of the last year fighting it, trying to find another way.  I was pouring so much energy into healing her and keeping her healthy pain free that I spent much of last year in chronic exhaustion and constant over-extending my gifts migraines. It was Audrey's choice when and how she wanted to be done. Starting around Samhain, Audrey told me I was harming myself pouring so much of my life force into her that she started refusing to let me pour my life force into her to heal her, she'd pull away whenever I tried and if I persisted she would get up and leave the room to make it clear she meant it. She would let me take her pain from her, but she stopped letting me heal her or run a full body chakra energy reset.  It was just after Christmas she started refusing hard kibble and she stayed alive for 11 days on sheer will power and my energy after she stopped eating entirely. On the 8th day of her hunger strike she insisted on walking all the way down to Tiedemann Pond so we could just sit together by the water. The last two weeks watching her dying was harder than her death, even though she wasn't in pain since I took all her pain from her but it was harder at every single "last time" knowing than when her time met up with her.

I'm still very emo with my nails painted black and wearing mostly black all the time.  I'm still very deep "in the hollows" as I called it when I was a kid, the place where I go to not feel anything in order to not feel my own sorrow so deep I could drown in it. It's a place where I can't cry and where my smiles don't touch my eyes. It's how I cope, until I reach the point my grief doesn't feel like I could drown in it. This is me tonight:

Like I said, I'm very emo "in the hollows" still. Even when my little emo pup visits me. (She visits me all the time at work and in the car and while I go do things -- but at home due to my warding she can only visit me in dream space when Artemis Britomartis or The Morrigan brings her to visit. Which one of the two goddesses most protective of me at this time has done every time I sleep. And Audrey knows she has a standing invitation to spend her next life with me, either as my child (should I have children before I get so old I biologically can't) or again as a beloved pet. But if as a pet, I reminded her to send me dream visions of her and precogs of our future together to be certain I know to look for her and find her to adopt her. She's not yet ready for her next life, she's still in soul review and watching over those she loved until she knows when/where she wants to be born next. And she visits me as often as she can. Her soul has always been devoted to me like that, even if she did make a better dog in this life than she made a husband last life....

The other thing to know about me when I'm in the hollows is that because I don't feel much of anything, it's VERY easy for me to sacrifice things I once loved if I feel I need to because it's not currently bringing me joy.  This is a warning -- if you make choices that make me feel I need to cut you out from my life or from reaching me, I will. Your choices are yours to make, but if you push me to the point of giving you up, sacrificing anyone or anything out is easy.

Also. In May I will be bringing my sister's family's dog Waffles home to live with me.  They have been done since just after I left from my Nov/Dec visit when Waffles decided to destroy her bed (and every bed they bought her) after I left until they put the blanket I had been sleeping with in her kennel with her. They've been doing the back and forth for over a year, my parents planned two separate roadtrips out there specifically planned around bringing Waffles back and then they changed their mind last minute. This time is different though, especially since they're all moving out in August for a house renno to add a third floor on their house. Also they're paying for my flight out there on May 2 and they'll be renting a car for me to drive back with the dog at some point to end the trip.  The only thing is, i don't yet have anyone to drive back with me and that stretch through the badlands is not safe for a girl by herself -- more women go missing along the highways through the Dakotas than anywhere else in the US. Everyone I've asked isn't available in May or is on the end of the roadtrip not in the Seattle area...except maybe Alana who I asked first because she's who I first precogged on that drive with me a year and a half ago. Only May isn't while Skerryvore is in Washington so I don't know if there's a good reason for her to fly out to Washington other than to accompany me on that drive back.... I'll figure out someone I trust to drive back with me and Waffles. Before May. Nancy could join me in June, and she would be good choice for it, but Waffles has a miserable existence of having her physical needs met but never being allowed to come upstairs or trusted or properly loved or accepted into the family... My sister is a cat person and doesn't trust the dog with the kids because Waffles is young excitable so my sister won't let her lick them in case she puppy nips them and Waffles spends far too much of her life in a kennel whenever they don't want to deal with her... It's a horrible situation and Waffles has tried so hard to do everything right and please them and just wants to be loved.... And the only time she gets her energy properly run off and she gets loved is when I visit or when my parents visit.... And from what I understand, it's been worse since I left because of how Waffles acted out over me leaving. bad enough my sister threatened to send her air cargo, in winter, because it's not safe for anyone to drive out to get Waffles...after my parents and I have bent backwards to try to rehome Waffles to her pack in Wisconsin who love her and are dog people It's a bad situation... and after I told Audrey about it, she got so excited for Waffles coming to live with us -- she wouldn't let Spock or Sophie use the new dog beds I bought Audrey at home and work because Audrey insisted they're for Waffles when she gets here. And then Audrey would pick out toys she thought Waffles would like put them in the bed waiting for Waffles to arrive.

To conclude, this is the polar bear in Audrey's stitched jersey which I washed when I washed her a couple days before her death day:

Sometimes, especially when it's laying and you can't see the head it looks like her in my bed. And the last couple weeks I hug that bear to fall asleep right now, the jersey still smells like the dog shampoo, as Audrey Pupburn would smell right after getting showered.