Farewell to sweet Sadie

Our poor little Sadie went to heaven last Tuesday.  Her sweet little body, with three legs that couldn't work, was just finished.  I made a quick trip to St. Louis to be with Beckie and Steven as she left this world.   I flew out Tuesday morning, Beckie picked me up from the airport.  And then we went to Kyle and Micah's house where Beckie is temporarily staying (since her landlord sold her home out from under her and she quickly needed living quarters).  For the rest of the afternoon, I just held my little dog - who was so emaciated and clearly in distress (panting, unable to settle).  Surely she recognized my scent but she was too much in pain to acknowledge me.  But that was OK, it was just good to hold her one last time.  Steven arrived around 4:30 and the vet came at about 5:30.  She was fresh out of MU vet school and was so capable and sweet.  The process went smoothly and we laid her to rest in a little doggie paw print cloth bag that I had made and Steven took her back to Columbia to be buried in our back yard.  Beckie was such a tender caregiver and I am so grateful for her sacrifices for Sadie.  

But, before he drove back, we all gathered at a BBQ restaurant on Delmar for dinner.  Emily and kids were already there.  Joe came a bit later.  

I spent the night at Emily's and had a wonderful Wednesday morning with her and Noah, Lucy, Quinn, and Larkin.  Noah and I played piano duets.  He played his cello.  I taught him how to play a part of the Imperial March and he figured out the rest.  We took photos out in the back yard.  I picked three vine-ripened tomatoes from Emily's garden to bring back to Arizona.  I basked in all the green.  And then, it was time to drop the kids off at school and take me back to the airport.  It was such a short trip but it recharged my batteries for the rest of our mission.  

 

 The rest of the week just flew by.  I didn't sleep well the night before Labor Day because I was thinking of all the loose ends that needed to be tied up at the office before I left on Tuesday.  So, although the office was closed on Monday, we went down anyway to take care of some things.  We combined that trip with our weekly grocery shopping.  Thursday and Friday were, not surprisingly, quite busy as I caught up with baptism reports and final preparations for our transfer on the 11th.  We did manage to relax in front of "Black Panther" on Friday night.  Saturday, yesterday, we went to the 9:00 temple session and then we entertained Jim and Karen Ravert (the old BYU friend who is serving in the Tucson mission) here at the house with lunch and they taught us how to apply Roots Magic and Puzzila to our family history efforts.  They left at 4:00 and we spent the rest of the day tying up more loose ends before the next big event - Steve's back surgery on Tuesday.  Stay tuned.....