One more realization I had was that my family as I knew it was getting smaller once again as my sister, my dad, and me stood hugging each other at the cemetery. You see, when I was little, I lived with my mom, dad, brother, sister, and grandma. We would visit my other grandma and grandpa a few times a year. My Grandma Crawford (the one that lived with us) died about 1 or 2 months before my 11th birthday. My mom and brother were taken in when I was 18. Grandma Mitchell succumbed to the many illnesses she suffered almost 5 years ago. Grandpa Mitchell just couldn't live any longer as of last week. In a way, it doesn't seem fair for there to be only 3 of us left. Yes, we have added to that family. My dad was remarried less than a year after my mom and brother passed away which added 2 new family members, and my sister and I have been married with children which has added 7 more. It's not the same (good, just different).
The hardest part of this heartbreaking event was watching my dad say goodbye to his dad. My grandpa was given full military honors. The flag and brass were presented to my dad because he was the one that was also a veteran. After my dad was presented with the brass, he started to sway a bit. When he turned around, he was shaking so much with such little color in his face that a few of us were very concerned. I told Marleah to pass the baby to someone so we could help Dad. One of our cousins was more than happy to help as they watched the scene unfold. We helped my dad over to the car and embraced. Memories of Mom and Anthony's funeral came flooding to my brain and tears came flooding down my cheeks.
The other hard thing this week was that our sweet Lexie passed away while we were at church on Sunday. We knew it was coming. The average life expectancy of a beagle is only 14 years, and she was 16. She was also looking worse and worse for the last few weeks of her life. She had lost so much weight that she was scary to look at. Quite honestly, the way she was acting on Saturday, I wasn't sure she was going to make it through the night. When I started to pray for her to at least make it until I got back from the funeral, the thought that came to my head was that I needed to stop praying for this poor dog to live. That though broke my heart, but I knew it was true. When we got home from church she had passed away in her kennel. Chad put a sheet over it so that the kids didn't have to see her. Eric wanted to see his best friend, though. He dropped his stuff at the door, ran over to her, and cried in agony. I have never seen him cry that hard before. He just crouched down next to the kennel holding up the sheet for about 5 minutes. When I asked him what he needed, he just said he wanted to be alone. It broke my heart to see my son hurt so much. This was something I couldn't fix. His constant through everything we have put him through was gone, and I had to leave the next day. It wasn't fair.
Our poor other dogs have had a hard time adjusting to her being gone as well. Dexter, our lab mix, couldn't figure out how to go outside by himself for a few days. We were having to wake up Jasper, the chihuahua mix, and make him go outside with Dexter so that he could use the bathroom. The good news about that is it gave Eric a project to help him heal along with the dog. Eric would go outside with Dexter until he walked away and wasn't paying attention, and then he would go back in. Each time Dexter would stay out longer and longer. This morning, he was able to completely go out by himself.
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