Streak and Grace

As we close down the year and look back, it has been a bit of a rough one. SOF has worked far more than usual, and that has been hard on her. And me, but mostly her. Losing Streak was really hard. And it still is. SOF did a really nice post on Streak the other day. But we now have Grace.

We didn't want her at first. It just felt too soon after losing Streak. It felt disloyal, and disrespectful. But the woman who wanted us to have a dog didn't take "no" for an answer. She had two dogs--one for my parents and one for us. Finally, we decided that this needed to happen. 

Her name came from an odd source. One of my old high school friends (she and I had, I think, one very unsuccessful date at one point) looked at our puppy pictures on Facebook and said, "she looks like a 'Grace.'" SOF and my mother and I just looked at each other and nodded. It fit.

 I don't think I had thought about it much beyond that. The name seemed cute. But it has taken on more meaning as we have had her in our lives. As SOF said, it sure felt like Streak wanted this to happen. He was always connecting us to others, and I know he would have hated us being sad. We needed grace in every meaning of the word, and we didn't even know it.

We still miss Streak.  But we learned that we could love Grace at the same time.  She could make us smile at the same time we grieved our friend.

Today is Christmas Eve, and I am grateful for so many, many things:  my loving and supportive wife; my family members around the country, and my amazing and loyal friends.

But this Christmas, my big present under the tree is Grace.