Hey.

I'm back from vacay and unfortunately back to the cold hard reality of Vader being in heaven. When we were pulling out of Miami on the ship on Saturday the 6th, we got a call from the vet college. Apparently Vader was not doing well at all. They could not stop the bleeding and further tests showed the cancer had spread to most of his organs and his bone marrow. There was nothing more that they could do, so we told them to not even wake him up from the surgery. That was so hard. That ship was the absolute last place on Earth that I wanted to be at that moment. In the long run though, I think it was for the best that we were away. It forced us to not think about him 24/7. We could focus on other things during the waking hours, but at night when we went to bed was the hardest. Many nights over the past few weeks, we cried ourselves to sleep.

When we got back home, Hubby went to Saskatoon and picked up Vader's ashes. I think we're going to have a stepping stone made in his honor and maybe put some of his ashes in it. The college called us yesterday and said they had made a pawprint from his paw and they'll ship it to us. That was very nice of them.

I miss him so much. The above picture is one of my favorites. It's from 2005. Who knew that when I took it, we'd only have another year with him.

Sorry to be such a downer, but such is life.

Rest in peace Dude...love you.