Good-bye my sweet and wonderful Diamond

Life has many highs and lows. Sometimes the trip from the top of the mountain into the deepest valley is extremely fast. 

Today we had to say good-bye to our Dalmatian Diamond. She just turned 16 years of age on March 25,2015.  I know it seems one should be prepared when a dog is that age but honestly, I can't get it through my head or seem to breath.  I just want to sit up all night and try to get my head around it;  to try to get my heart around it.  

In this house, in this room, I delivered Diamond  into this world in March  1999. I opened her sack and cleaned her airway, clamped and cut her cord and put her on her wonderful mother Diva for her first warm drink of milk. Into my hands she was delivered; now from my arms she has passed. 

I want the whole world to stop,  I want her back. How can the sun continue to shine and the night continue to drive the sun from the sky, and the whole of time keep passing when she is gone? I know those are the thing that will carry me from moment to moment and day to day; experience provides that proof. But now I want to stay in this early morning's glow, to feel her kisses and help her eat.  To believe she could go on forever. Time, it is sometimes a cruel master as it ages our beloved dogs and takes them from us. 

Diamond, 4 months old at the Dalmatian Club of America National Specialty, Denver, Colorado, 1999.