The next morning I woke up around 6 am and walked out of our bedroom and looked down the hall at Lola's empty dog bed where she normally slept at night. She wasn't there. No, I didn't dream that Lola got hit by a car, it was real. Too real. I got dressed and fixed some coffee and went to the front room where I normally went in the mornings to check e-mail and social media sites. Lola wasn't on the chair looking out the window. It seemed like everything I did made me think about Lola. Why did this happen? She was supposed to be with us for 5 or 10 more years! I went around to the back of the house and looked at the blanket covering Lola's dead body. I pulled it back and knelt down beside her and petted her still body. She was such a good dog I thought. I wasn't ready for this. I got up and decided to go for a walk like Lola and I normally would in the morning. At the end of the street I ran into one of my neighbors who was walking her dogs and she said, "Hey where's your partner?" I told her what had happened last night and I broke down crying. She was shocked at the news and gave me a hug. She said that she would pray for me and my family for our loss. I continued on my walk and went on one of our normal routes. I would look at the spots that Lola liked to stop at and sniff around. It was a hard walk full of memories. After I got home I decided to prepare a grave in our backyard so we could bury Lola. We had done this with two of our cats that we had lost over the years. This time I had to dig a much bigger hole. The ground was hard and rocky but I got the grave started. I told my wife that I would probably need one of our boys to help finish digging. Later in the day, I took my wife and two daughters on another walk to show them one of Lola's favorite routes. It seemed so odd not having Lola walking with us. After our walk we all tried to do some of our normal weekend activities but it was hard not to constantly think about Lola being missing. We sent a group text out to the family to let them know that we would like everyone to come home for dinner that evening. After dinner, my oldest son helped me finish digging the grave for Lola and then we gathered the family outside in the backyard for a little graveside service for Lola. Everyone looked at the grave in disbelief. This was so sad. Lola was such a big part of our family. We covered Lola in her blanket with dirt. This was her final resting place. We decided to order a marker to place on the grave in remembrance of her. We didn't do it for the cats, but we needed to do it for Lola. She was special. The next week was very hard to get through. Every day was filled with memories of Lola and we discussed what Lola was missing or what she might be doing if she was still with us. We looked through pictures on our phones to find pictures of Lola to share and place in an online photo album. I knew this was going to be hard, but I wasn't prepared for how hard it was going to be. Lola was a dog, but she was a member of our family. I was not prepared for the amount of loss, grief and emptiness that I was feeling over Lola. This will take some time...
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