We All Come Back Together

Early Thursday morning... Cali passed away. 

We actually had an appointment to take her in on Friday evening to relieve her of her pain, but she ended up leaving on her own terms, in our home & surrounded by all her loved ones. 

Once we were able to get our bearings straight, we managed to make contact with one of the Vet offices in town to see where we could have Cali cremated. After talking to the gal, she referred us to a place called "Dirk & Dogs", which is located out in a town called Lummen. Luckily, the place had a website we were able to check out in terms of what types of services they offered. I think the crazy thing is that it's a kennel in addition to a place that can do cremations..kinda like your one stop shop in a sense, right? Anyway, we made our way over there and staff was incredibly nice, understanding and very sweet when it came to making our arrangements for Cali. We opted to have her cremated by herself verses having her cremated with other animals in addition to picking out a nice little urn for her. It was extremely hard to leave her, but we felt she was in great hands...plus, we'd be able to pick her up on Saturday. 

While we were waiting to pick her back up, I did some hunting online to find some sort of paw impression memory kinda thing-a-majigg I could do as a memorial thing for her aside from the shadow box I'm working on. Mainly, it's something I wanted to get for Eric since he really wants something he can have with him at work aside from a paper weight. After doing some searching, I came across Mug Revolution. It's a site where you can get a beautiful ceramic mug custom made. I shot off an email to the owner who was incredibly nice & very helpful, then went ahead and ordered a 16oz mug in which I can have Cali's paw print put on it, a glaze called "Earth tone" which borders on the colors she had in addition to a little heart on the thumb rest since she had a heart design on her chest. When Monday rolls around, I'll ship off my paw imprint  to them so they can get the ball rolling..hopefully it'll show up in time for Eric's birthday that's later next month. If not, I'm sure it's the thought that counts. 

Picture provided by Mug Revolution

Saturday came around and we went to Dirk &Dogs to retrieve our girl. The staff was very nice and made sure we were happy with the urn we picked out, then sealed it up so it would be safe during transport. As sad as the situation was, Eric was VERY happy to have his girl back.

I hope it doesn't seem morbid that we're happy to have our cremated dog back, but, we have a particular mind frame when it comes to our family:

We all came together. We all come back together. No matter what.