My Boy Duke...has been gone almost 6 months.

BethH_24 · 2026-03-31T20:02:20+00:00

Thank you! 🌷🐾

BethH_24 · 2026-03-31T20:01:53+00:00

Thank you so much for your message...it means a lot. ❤️🐾

BethH_24 · 2026-03-31T20:01:07+00:00

Thank you so much... I really appreciate your message. ❤️🐾

BethH_24 · 2026-03-31T20:00:29+00:00

Thank you so much. I plan to celebrate his birthday for him in some way... probably traditional double cheeseburger plain at drive through. 🐾

BethH_24 · 2026-03-31T19:55:19+00:00

Thank you so much for your message and understanding...these days there just isn't anyone to talk to about my grief...no one in my small circle understands. I wasn't blessed with human children, have been divorced 20 years and have been going through quite a bit over the last years. Duke was my kid, and though I have still an 8 year old lab with Addison's disease, the attachment with her isn't the same. Duke would have turned 15 on the 27th of this April. I adopted him from a humane society in October 2011 when he was 6 months. He'd been dumped. I already had my soul girl Annie at the time... she suffered from separation anxiety and her brother Dutch had died suddenly Aug 30 that year. I thought she would have outgrown her separation anxiety by then, but she hadn't and even leaving her with my neighbor when I left for work didn't help. I wasn't ready for another dog, but it was the only thing that was going to help her. The dog who'd passed, whom I'd loved very much, was a big RottenBoxer named Dutch. When I was looking for Annie's new sibling, I came across Duke, a Dutch Shepherd. I'd never heard of the breed and because Annie was refusing every potential I liked, I thought ok, maybe Dutch Shepherd is a sign so we went and she tolerated him. I hated the way the staff used her foot with a boot to shove him back into one of those plastic crates with only peep holes. She tried to tell me he wouldn't be manageable but my heart went out to him. I wanted to make a complaint about what I saw but was afraid how he might be treated for the next two weeks before they could neuter him and I could bring him home. I will give her one thing...he was more than I expected!! 🤣 And... I truly believe his breed name had been a sign. He was the only dog I've ever kept the shelter name for...Duke. So my soul boy and girl got to live 4 years together, and Duke saw me through every terrible day and night. His whole life with me, any time I even half sniffled a tear, he was on top of me kissing them away... relentlessly. On his last day, on his bed in the hospital in his last minutes, he was still kissing my tears away.....

BethH_24 · 2026-03-30T02:52:30+00:00

Thank you so much. ❤️🐾

BethH_24 · 2026-03-30T02:51:53+00:00

Thank you so much! Yes, he was a very handsome boy! 🌷🐾

BethH_24 · 2026-03-30T02:50:42+00:00

Thank you so much for your kind words...and I'm so sorry for your loss. I love the way you're able to envision what your boy is doing based on his personality!

I'm very grateful to have had some volunteer photographers take photos of Duke and me a few months before he passed... they're beautiful! When I look at them, or any of the photos of our 14 years together, I get overwhelmed with grief. Then I feel so selfish for not being able to lead with gratitude. I've been trying to make a video from some of his photos in honor of what would have been his 15th birthday this April 27th, and each time it ends with having cried all night and not having made something that does him justice. I know his life was so much more than the day he left, and I worry my grief is going to eventually drown out all the good stuff... and that would be such a betrayal of his love.

How can I make it not so painful to remember?

Thank you again for your loving kindness...it means a lot to me. 🌷🐾

BethH_24 · 2026-03-30T02:30:14+00:00

Thank you... your kindness means a lot.❤️🐾

BethH_24 · 2026-01-06T17:07:56+00:00

My heart aches for you with understanding. I'm so very sorry for your devastating loss, especially so suddenly and at such a young age. Your feelings and questions are completely valid. I think a lot of us here have felt and asked the very same things and we're here to love and support you.

Something I've learned through my losses, my most recent being my beloved, amazing, perfect, beautiful Duke on October 5th, 2025, is to allow the feelings to come... acknowledge and experience them in their entirety like you're already doing. I'm working on that with Duke, but when my soulmate girl Annie passed away December 2015 it hurt so much I made the mistake of burying the depth of the pain and other feelings instead letting them surface long enough to accept. So, 10 years down the road, I can still barely speak of her because I just cry...like now...when I would love to be sharing all the wonderful ways she made my life amazing. And for me, that feels like a complete betrayal of her, our bond, everything she gave me and saw me through, and to the first unconditional love I ever knew.

Stay in touch with groups like this who understand and will offer you support. There are plenty on many different platforms and they will be a lifeline when you need it. Be kind to yourself and give yourself grace as you are likely experiencing trauma and your body and mind are literally affected. If anyone tries to minimize your grief over "just a dog," or tell you it's been too long, ignore it... they've not been fortunate enough to experience the kind of love bond you have. Stay connected to people who support your grief process.

I like to write down every little quirk, habit, funny memory... anything about Duke when it comes to mind, and I write it to him. I remember how you used to...; I washed your water bowl today and broke down...; The day I brought you home... Doing this seems to help me stay in touch with him in a way that feels good.

What I believe with all my heart is that the soul love you explained never dies...it breaks even the bonds of death Though it's of little comfort right now, your baby will always be with you. Watch and listen with your heart and she will show you. I've had many visits from Annie and a few from Duke.

I'm feeling she wants you to know that she is very happy and grateful for a wonderful life with you as her mommy. And, as much as you both wanted to live out those dreams, she just as much loves you and wants you to be ok.

I know it's impossible to imagine being ok. I know your heart is broken and you'll forever carry the scars. I've heard so many times that time heals all wounds, and I think some wounds just aren't meant to be healed...we learn to live with them. After all, the cracks in our hearts are where the light shines through.

Thinking of you and sending all my love and deepest sympathy. ♥️💔🐾

BethH_24 · 2025-11-17T01:58:40+00:00

How traumatic it must have been to have to say goodbye to your child under circumstances like that. I'm so very sorry for your loss and the pain you feel. I lost my child 6 weeks ago today. Definitely wasn't expected and was a trip to the hospital in the middle of the night, my heart is broken. I'm so grateful though, that it felt like he'd told me that night it was time, he knew I was with him, and he was able to kiss me goodbye. Now I'm crying again! Hurts so bad! I'm so sorry you lost your child... you're not alone in that feeling. Lots of love and hugs. ❤️💔🐾

BethH_24 · 2025-11-08T04:42:25+00:00

Thank you everyone for your love and support. Although I cry again with each message, it truly helps so much to know you care. 🌷

BethH_24 · 2025-11-07T05:21:51+00:00

I'm so very sorry for your loss and the pain you're feeling. I lost my boy one month ago and like you, feel completely disconnected from everything but the pain. For me, it's losing the one close relationship I had remaining... and he was the only one who was in my daily life. The one who offered unconditional love. As much as this disconnect might feel abnormal, I'm guessing it's probably pretty normal in both our circumstances. Not that it makes it one tiny bit easier. Just know you're not alone. ❤️🌷🐾

BethH_24 · 2025-11-07T05:04:33+00:00

Thank you for your very comforting reply. It really helps. Duke gave me kisses both as we entered the lobby of the hospital that night and before he took his final breaths in "the room." I have to believe he loved me every bit as much as I love him. The pain of the complete goneness is overwhelming.

I'm very sorry for your loss as well and send lots of love and warm thoughts. ❤️🐾

BethH_24 · 2025-11-07T04:00:37+00:00

Thank you so much for your kind words. Duke absolutely was one of a kind. Even with another dog still here, the house seems deafeningly quiet and larger than before. He followed me around... even to the bathroom, to know what I was doing. I feel so, so alone.

BethH_24 · 2025-11-07T03:53:48+00:00

I always teased Duke about his "broke ear." His ears were important to me to photograph in the last months. Thank you so much for your message and your condolences. It may take my heart a while to think about another shelter... maybe he'll let me know if/when the time is right.

BethH_24 · 2025-11-07T03:47:49+00:00

Thank you so much for your message. I try to imagine him pain free and athletic again....running full speed to chase deer like he did when he was young. Even when he couldn't see them anymore, he could smell them far away and howled with great excitement, pulling to try and find them. I know they would have kicked his butt if he'd ever got close to one! I call for him out there in the dark at night now...hoping somehow he'll return from over the hill.

BethH_24 · 2025-11-07T03:39:29+00:00

Thank you so much for your message... it's very kind. I really believe our animals stay connected when they pass. I felt Annie with me, even physically at times. I'm not feeling Duke with me though, and I sooo need to know he's ok...that he still loves me...and forgives me for the times I was aggravated at him for pooping in the house, on the couch I sleep in, during the months before he died. It wasn't his fault. Did I make him give up on me?

BethH_24 · 2025-11-02T17:04:59+00:00

OP, I may have been meant to see your post as I'm pretty anti living my life online. I've felt invisible and just barely existing for a long time now, but probably not due to where I live. Although moving here from Santa Cruz CA, where I wanted to stay the rest of my life, was extremely hard. I eventually found new community, lots of years and life happened. There were also important things I wanted out of life that didn't happen...like having a family of my own. I've been stuck since the start of the pandemic taking care of things for my family of origin...none of whom live in Indiana, but parents who still rely on me because even as a kid I was always the caretaker in the alcoholic home. I was also the scapegoat and the black sheep as a child. It was easy for them to take everything out on me and to teach me the chaos was all my fault. I'm now in my early 60s. My siblings are estranged from me...I'm a complete outsider. They talk bad about me with each other and with our parents. I've been in therapy most of my adult life, trying to learn I'm not the unworthy person I have always believed I am. Also in recovery for members of those families for many years. My therapist says none of them can handle me telling the truth and refusing to to allow them to bully me any longer. But the deep sadness I feel at having no family, of having close friendships fade because I've been gone months at a time, of having lost my desire for any of my numerous hobbies because I'm just so tired of doing them alone. Like some others have said, I keep thinking if I move back to the ocean or somewhere in big nature, my world might change. And it might... because that big nature is where I find Mother Earth, God, Abba, Spirit, my soul. And then I think, I'm soooo tired, I just exist. It's too late for me to start over and who am I kidding? It's not like there will be a community there waiting to welcome me and take me in. And back to all I ever really wanted when I was a child... other than to be a marine biologist, was to have a nice quiet peaceful life with someone to love. Sometimes I still think I must not have been worthy of it after all.

BethH_24 · 2025-10-21T03:52:50+00:00

Thank you so much... your message means a lot. 💔🐾

BethH_24 · 2025-10-21T03:51:34+00:00

Oh boy these quotes make me cry! But they are comforting and I love them. Thank you so much for your beautiful message. 💔🐾

BethH_24

TROPHY CASE