Forever and Always

This afternoon I received a call from our animal hospital. They were asking what name we wanted on Beanie's box. A little back story...When we were there on Saturday, Chris told them that we wanted Willie-Bean. We were ok enough with this, but I didn't totally love it. In keeping with the tradition of us we gave him a nickname of Beanie because he looked A LOT like the Bush's Baked Beans dog Duke. Chris and I would always joke that Beanie would sooo roll on us just like Duke did!! :-) Over time 'Willie' headed out and Beanie became his name. Lily has always called him Beanie, even Charlotte had picked it up.

Anyway, it was fate that they called today. I didn't feel comfortable making the decision without asking Chris. I called him at work and he agreed and felt the same way as I did. I called back and we will have Beanie engraved on his box. I am hopeful that his ashes will be back on Friday and we can bring him back home for good.

As for Gus, he is slowly adjusting, very slowly. He ate on Sunday night a full bowl of food but has been picking ever since. I watch him in the yard and he just looks so confused. He did go a little further in the yard and made it just past our little hill yesterday. He even barked a little. If you know Gus you know it is NOT normal for him to not bark at the wind, or grass or anything that moves in the yard for that matter. :-) He will be headed to my parents on Friday to stay while we are away. He has friends down there to romp with so it will be nice for him.

Lily still says she misses Bean. If she talks about it then we talk about it, but if not we aren't in front of her. She is still too young to really get it. In her mind I know she thinks that we took Bean to a field to meet Jesus. When we were preparing her for this I must have a billion articles on how to deal with this. We avoided words like doctor,sick, or going to sleep etc. But we were firm that he wasn't going to be here when she came home on Sunday.

On Friday morning she was asking her normal 3 million questions about Bean and Jesus. Chris says this is the reason he worked so I that I got to field all of this stuff on the fly. You never know what she is going to ask or say. I asked her what she thought Beanie's heaven was going to look like. She told me that it was going to look like our house. I told her that I thought Beanie would really like that. I asked if she thought Bean would have friends and she said 'yes a horsey' and then she stopped and said 'maybe a doggie too.' I told her again that I thought he would like that. Lily has been really into flowers lately, when they were so sick this month Chris brought them roses home- her self proclaimed favorite. Knowing this I asked her if she thought there was going to be flowers for Bean. At first she said no, then changed and said 'yes Mommy they be flowers.' I asked her what kind and she told me 'one red rose, just one. He like that.'

Last week once we made our minds that this was best for Bean I had a hard time keeping it together. I still do if I allow myself to think to much about it. This is going to sound strange but, when I try to stifle the beginnings of crying I let out this weird hiccup type sound. This freaks Lily out, she doesn't like it one bit when I am upset. So anytime I felt it coming on I had to really stifle it- thankfully it turned into a more of a true hiccup sound. Every single time this happened Lily would look at me with a very critical eye and say 'ohhh Momma you have those stinky old hiccups again!' It would buy me just enough time to suck it all back it up and smile back at her little face. I don't know how many times she really bought it, but she never questioned it once I agreed with her.

One day I do plan on writing out exactly what happened during Beanie's last 24 hours with us. I am just not there yet. I know it may sound strange I guess, but I don't want to forget it. It was truly a great last night we had with him.

Chris and I wanted to thank everyone who has left kind words here, facebook, phone message, phone or anywhere for us. It really means a lot to us. Thank you.