About two weeks ago, Bubba and I succumbed to yet another dog, a gorgeous masked husky, who we named Maya. She had been found abandoned on the side of the road and had spent a month cooped up in a small kennel awaiting a new home. She was thin and wretched, but she had a heart of gold. She would smile at you with her big bear of a head and you couldn’t help but fall in love with her.

We spent one night with her before taking her back to the Humane Center for a routine spay. After the spay, unsupervised in the Humane Center, she ripped open her stitches and did damage to her internal organs. Everything was supposedly fixed. After a week in the ICU, we were finally able to take her home on Thursday. This evening, after a fun afternoon chasing the ball, she died in the yard, probably due to her internal injuries.

Maybe it was fate’s way of saying that three dogs is too many, or maybe it is God’s will that we be the home she remembers before dying. We only knew you a short time, our dear girl, but you affected us more than you would know. We hope you are feeling better now, and know that we love you.

They say memories are golden
well maybe that is true.
I never wanted memories,
I only wanted you.

A million times I needed you,
a million times I cried.
If love alone could have saved you
you never would have died.

In life I loved you dearly,
In death I love you still.
In my heart you hold a place
no one could ever fill.

If tears could build a stairway
and heartache make a lane,
I’d walk the path to heaven
and bring you back again.

Our family chain is broken,
and nothing seems the same.
But as God calls us one by one,
the chain will link again.