Insert George Michael joke here

Faith is one of those things you almost can’t catch.  You glimpse it in the corner of your eye, turn your head and it’s gone, sometimes.  My Faith is like a butterfly.  It flutters around me, sometimes miles away and then flies closer and closer still until I want to grab it in my fist and crush it, knowing that having it this close will lead me to rely too much on it and make silly errors of judgment, like crushing a butterfly in my hand.

I grew up with no real religious transmission around me, either inwards or outwards.  I was christened, along with my brother.  I think it was perhaps only because it gave my mother a chance to be centre of attention for a bit, get some new knitted cardigans for me and my little brother and christening cake, made by my grandmother with ice white royal icing, a trellis Moses basket on top with a blue-blanketed fondant baby inside.  I was put out because it was blue and evidently my brother.

Apparently, the guests gave us 50 pence each, hundreds of 50 pences. I am unsure whether this was a gift of the time, or location or what.  Whatever. 50 pences in pint glasses, stored in the second hand sideboard in the weeks following the ceremony.

My earliest memory is vivid.  I’m sitting on an uncarpeted tiled floor in our new house on the council estate. I am facing the front door along the hallway. On the doorstep, I see my mother throwing bags into the drive, my father looking harassed but smirking, as if to say ‘Here we go again.’  He had stolen the 50 pences for drink. I saw him a couple of times aged 12 at which point rumours abounded that he was ill, missing or dead.  He turned up on our doorstep when I was 18, knocking quietly on the door, asking ‘Is your Mum there?’  I went and fetched her and 15 minutes later asked who had been at the door.  The next time I saw him, he was in a coffin, last year, New Years' Day. I was too young to have faith, the day my mother threw my dad out.

The church, religion was something that never reached our house, bar watching Carols from Kings on Christmas Eve.  Mum was scornful, thought Christians, in particular, were ‘odd,’ yet was fascinated and respectful of my friends’ religions, be they Muslim, Hindu or Plymouth Brethren.  It was as if Christianity was one of those nights where you end up snogging someone you shouldn’t. An embarrassment, something to be brushed over and something that didn’t apply to us anymore now we’d been christened and could get into the local school. I can remember asking my Mum on the night of the Big Storm why she was asking God for help. I asked her that every time something went wrong, thought it fascinating this God chap didn’t exist yet he was always meant to save us when we were in a pickle.

My faith was purely invested in my mother when I was younger.  She was our protector and security, working hard to keep us fed and clothed, dragging us round by the hand to the front gardens’ of bullies, facing down other parents, organising petitions to stop climbing frames instead of computers being bought for school.  She fostered children, sometimes 3 at a time, in addition to my brother and me.  I had no one else to admire, she was an icon for me, not painted on three bits of folding wood, but right there, eking out money, making Halloween costumes from bin bags, going without so that I could go on school trips.

Then she got sad and she started to drink and my Mum and any faith I ever had in her was chipped away, every night, with every text, voicemail, and broken promise.

I was faithless and remained so for years, trusting no one because they left, either physically or more esoterically.  I never allowed myself to rely on anyone, tell him or her my secrets or allowed myself to relax and anxiety and sadness and blue days and mean red days came and went.  Then my grandfather died and all of a sudden, I found it again, or at least I thought I did.  The weeks leading up to his difficult death were lonely, except on Sundays.  I’d crept into the back of the local Anglican Church and sat down and breathed in the scent of old wood, chrysanthemums and fairy cakes and just felt safe.  It was confusing, I had no clue when to sit or stand, sing or speak, or even how to pray. 

Nevertheless, I made it through an hour and a half and left feeling a little lighter. When my Grandfather died, it was a comfort to believe, or try to believe that he wasn’t ashes in a memorial garden, but that some essence of him was out there, cogent and checking I wasn’t getting up to too much mischief.

The Anglicans were all a bit literal. They believed what the Bible said as it was written and after a while, I started feeling a little uncomfortable, like a fraud. There were a couple of arm wavers, a couple of very devout people there and I just didn’t ‘feel it’.  I left after I had missed two weeks and got an earful from the secretary about my commitment.  Once again, I couldn’t keep my trap shut and gave her one of my grandfather’s best lines.  ‘If I sit in a church every Sunday, it doesn’t make me a good Christian, the same as if I sit in a garage every Sunday doesn’t make me a good car.’

I had a break for a bit after that, wondering if I believed or not.  I am weak, perhaps in that I need to believe that of all the things in my life that have been bloody awful have been for some purpose, otherwise I fear I would flip into ‘Falling Down’ mode, a nihilistic puddle of despair.  I couldn’t bring myself to think that this was it.  I am rational, intelligent, think Darwin really knows what he is talking about but for me, the unexplained, mystery, wonderment, hope, desire….all of that, that’s my ‘God’, to assign the popular name.  I know HOW things come about through Science, but the WHY BOTHER of it all made my head implode.  I liked believing that there a reason for my not understanding things and that something out there was keeping an eye on me, ready to pounce when things got really bad, or really good, or just to say ‘Hi.’

I went along to the local United Reformed Church one Sunday morning, after a particularly low week. They had a nice clock tower and the chimes sound the hour across my town.  I’d never felt so welcome or so at home.  The Minister asked my name that first day and never forgot it afterwards. He looked like Alan Bennett and sounded a little like him.  Listening to sermons, hoping there would be a reference to a small car park, a garden bench, and a squeezy tomato ketchup bottle made things fun.  I went to bible study classes and was made a member of the church 6 months after I’d started in a ceremony.  I became more involved, baking cupcakes for meetings, helping with tea and coffee after services and eventually asked if we could renew our vows there. The minister had changed by now but he was over the moon, came to our house, and talked about Nimrod, hymns, words, and flowers and even my most scientific of husbands agreed that they had done well in making me feel good about myself.

In May last year I emailed the minister to say that unfortunately due to changing circumstances we would have to cancel the ceremony.  I never heard anything from anyone from that church again. My understanding of Christianity, as preached at that church, was about kindness, understanding (the URC is perhaps the most liberal of denominations), forgiveness and looking after your neighbours.  Perhaps I just found a dodgy minister, or a dodgy church, or a dodgy denomination or even a dodgy religion overall.  I raged internally for months and months that no one had even bothered to reply to my email. I felt rage as I imagine quite a lot of people feel who have been forced or cajoled into experiencing organised religion and then fought their way out from it, or had fallen out of it, as I did.

The past year has been horrific, with illness and loss and silly little things like MOT failures, arguments with friends, injury and depression and every time something else ‘bad’ happened, I prayed. Prayed that we could get a break, prayed that this would be the last thing, and prayed that everything would be ok from January 1^st 2013. I prayed just as hard as I had done when in and out of church earlier. 

A couple of months ago, as I woke up from a general anaesthetic for an operation on my back performed by wizards with lasers and scalpels and oxygen and painkillers and the ability to shave a disc so it didn’t press on my nerve anymore through a one inch cut and I realised I’d been talking to myself for far too long.

My faith has all but gone again, at least in the religious paraphernalia, language and ritual that go with it. I don’t believe in an all-seeing God anymore, the ‘something’ that is out there making things happen.  However, I’m starting to have faith in people.  In my husband, who has put up with an Everest of my faults for 11 years now.  Faith in my Aunt and my Nan, knowing that they always have my best interests at heart.  Faith in long-time friends who I rarely see because of geography but who still squeal with delight when I suggest a weekend together. Faith in people from twitter, strangers who have spent time, money and effort in checking in on me, noticing if I am down, sending gifts and letters. Someone who has given me the opportunity to admire another’s mind and the confidence to write again and write as me, not as a caricature. A new friend who makes me laugh every day with silly pictures, a previously unnoticed speech impediment and dreadful shaggy dog stories.  

The biggest change though, because of all of those people, is that I now have faith in me. I finally have faith that I am worthy of my place on this big ball of rock. How’s that for a God complex?

The Mayans said the world would end

A year has passed since I reached that elusive BMI of 25.  A whole twelve months filled with shock and terror and failure and determination and sadness.  It’s amazing how just the days flipping over one by one can drag you inexorably in to a state of despair, no matter how many nights you lay there, eyes painfully, itchily open at 3am, thinking, ‘Right, tomorrow things will be different.’

2012 was a mind shattering screw up of a year.  The plans of the early months juddered, halted then cracked beyond repair.  The church and reception and a 100 invites to a vow renewal were cancelled and retracted, embarrassed apologies whispered through tears, elbowing both concern and nosiness away.  I said goodbye to one love and hello a while later to a distraction, a comfort, a bad idea when all was said and done.  I danced my way through summer, thinking I owned the world because finally, finally, I was slim.  I could wear the clothes, do the running, sit with shades on drinking spritzers outside snazzy bistros and feel I belonged.  Yet I went home and cried myself to sleep most nights. I was dappling the surface of my life with sunshine, but underneath was darkness and weeds entwining round my feet and dragging me further and further under, splashing panic attacks and fear at me whilst I struggled to gain purchase on a steadying rock.  But of course, I’d screwed up and the rock was gone.

Being slim had been a goal for over 15 years. It was the pot at the end of the rainbow and the flag atop a mountain.  If I got there, things would piece together nicely and I would live my life out in a Disneyfied wonderland. 

The things they don’t tell you about being slim:

• You lose over 10 stone, go to a modelling photo-shoot as a Size 12 and are referred to as ‘the plus size girl’;
• You are scared of every single piece of fricking food that is ever laid in front of you;
• Coast can shag off with their sizing.  A Size 12/14 EVERYWHERE ELSE is not 18/20 with you, you confidence wreckers;
• Other slim girls will call you fat.  When I was fatfatfat there was much more of a sisterhood.  I throw compliments about like confetti, mainly because I like to make others feel good but also because I don’t have an ‘edit’ feature in my brain (essentially why my writing is so haphazardly jumbled too.) I was in a bar in Hoxton and a girl sneered at me and called me a chubby bitch as I applied some lip-gloss in the ladies loo;
• You look around rooms to see if you’re the fattest person there and once you realise you are you go home and think ‘What was the point in all that then?’ and eat until you feel you will pop with self-disgust;
• Shop assistants schmooze you, oiling around you like eels instead of trying to subconsciously steer you to the handbag and shoe department;
• There is always someone skinnier, prettier, more successful than you and they are all worrying about people being skinnier, prettier and more successful than them;
• You still want to eat;
• Slim may equal more confidence, but for this chubster, it certainly didn’t make me any happier;
• Your Mum will still hate you.

I’d lost half of me physically and a good portion of me mentally.  My outlook on the world was shaped by my shape.  I didn’t know how to be in my own skin.  Sitting down on the ground became hugely awkward as I didn’t know where my arms and legs should go but ultimately my thoughts didn’t know where to go either.

I went for a job interview at a designer clothing website doodab place.  Their offices were sublime, mirror reflection reception desks, black and white furnishings, plasma screens and ivory avalanche roses in square glass vases.  I watched as designers and models and funky young hipsters passed by in their ludicrous get up, half of them unable to walk more than pigeon steps due to tippy toe stilettos, the other half tripping over too long trouser cuffs or flipping too long fringes out of their eyes.  I wanted to be one of them so badly but at the same time, I utterly despised them because I knew that they would never have let me through the door at my old size.  I’d had a first interview at their distribution centre in Charlton, it was almost like pre-screening to see if I had the ‘look’. Only after you had been stamped for approval were you allowed up to Westfield to mix with the beautiful people.

I surprised myself with my abhorrence of what I was seeing.  I was finally close to being part of the ‘in crowd’, the Shoreditch restaurants and bars, the guest lists, the designer clothes that finally fit.  I just sat there, perched on the edge of the sofa feeling self –conscious and nauseous and thinking ‘Really? 800 quid for a wisp of silk that will last 4 months until you’re told a different colour wisp of silk is the right thing to be wearing?’  My ennui with the constant media portrayals of what I ‘should’ look like, the incessant consumerism of ‘buy this to make you look better’ and the fear that should I put on a lb. of weight should I have commenced work there would end with some sort of written warning and a boot up the arse through the curlicued door back into Shepherd’s Bush had me literally shaking. 

I gave the interviewer a bag of lip and told them toodlepip.

No job, no husband, no hope. Each day was awash with guilt and hope and feeling like a clockwork robot winding down, one arm reached out towards the next step but the rest of me unable to work up the motivation to follow it.  I’d stay in bed for days at a time, fearful to face the big scary world, taking comfort only when the door handle turned when he returned home in the evening.  Safety.

We lived together almost throughout the separation.  There were still feet in laps, affection, cuddles and kisses.  An awareness of each other that had gone towards the end, before the difficult decision.  There were bickers, snaps, and rolls of eyes of course. Nine years of buying your husbands’ wardrobe for him, complaining that he never made any decisions, never wanted to spend money on things and then seeing him spend over two grand on a bike and some clothes a month after you were no longer there to do it grated horrifically, as I’m sure me going out and calling, or receiving flowers from a different man more than grated on him.

I told him to ask out the receptionist at the gym, not because I wanted him to be happy, necessarily, but because I wanted my guilt to be reduced, to be able to move on without feeling like ‘the bad guy’ anymore.  That wasn’t me. I’d always put others first, especially him.  I stopped recognising myself not only in mirrors but in my behaviour too.  I got lots of attention during that summer. As soon as the news got out there were predators, literally hours afterwards. Old friends I hadn’t heard from in ages suddenly wanted to meet for coffee, which I discovered, was a euphemism for ‘pour on the flattery and hope I get laid.’  I began to feel threatened and scared, exactly as I had when I was at my biggest.  I was fearful of people’s intentions, resentful when they said nice things, resentful when they didn’t.   A crushing sense of inevitability became more apparent.  I had thought being slim would equal happiness.  I had slipped a disc during some exercise in July and by September, a stone and a half had crashed back on due to an inability to walk further than 100 metres without crying and turning to comfort through food yet again. 

Being in pain and having a jumbled mind led me to become elusive and exclusive. I turned down invitations, hid away in the house, told myself I wanted to be a freelancer because of the freedom but it was really so I could work from the sofa under a blanket, hidden from the world.  I was now nothing and everything and all in-between.  Not fat, not skinny, ostensibly what The Sun and most of its readers would describe as curvy, what I would say ‘comfortable’ in size. Mentally I was anything but.  Every ounce you put on after losing that much you feel is being scrutinised by everyone.  You see scorn or pity in people’s eyes, even if it isn’t there.  Your ‘selfies’ are hidden by pets because of the hint of double chin that has returned. (Even at my skinniest I always had a face like a demented hamster with a sponge stored in each cheek) I lived my life through a website, living vicariously through others, watching them have lives, run, socialise, work, all the while sitting in my cocoon and waiting for an operation that would magic my life back to life.

I awoke during a night in October with the enormous clarity that I was being a, and I don’t use these words lightly, silly fucking selfish bitch.  We took tentative steps at first, because we had changed in that short time we were apart.  He had new confidence from looking after himself. I was more tolerant, more aware of how demanding of perfection I was.  It took until Christmas to realise that this was right again; all the clichés about working at a marriage were true. We work better together.

And so here it is, a year later, 2 and a bit stone heavier, incredibly self-conscious, feeling a failure and wanting to lie in bed eating cheese on toast and hope that I will wake up tomorrow and I will have found that elusive pot of gold and I will be happy. The one magnificent thing I have realised is that without him, I’m not me and me, underneath it all, is pretty bloody awesome, even with some chub.

Letter to Phoebe

Dear Phoebe,

Writing has always been cathartic for me.  Dumping my thoughts on a blank page has always helped me make sense of the confusing, rationalise events and reduce the worrying.  Forgive me for writing all about you, but I want to make sure that I will always have something out there that reminds me of right now.  Right now, with you right here.

You were there when everyone else had left.  The summer of 2012 saw me screw up a hundred relationships, some that needed screwing up and some that didn’t.  When I’d finished screwing them all up, you were still sat beside me, snoring your head off or trying to lick your own butt.  At this moment you are sat at my feet, grumbling away, trying to hawk up god knows what, having a scratch, staring.  Mainly staring.  At what, I don’t know, but whatever it is, it isn’t here.

We got you only 18 months ago. We had wanted a dog for a while to add to the menagerie of 3 cats that were getting too big for their boots.  I was overweight and the doctor had told me to get a dog to take for walks.  We managed to select the only dog on the planet that doesn’t like walking, but prefers to go for a sniff, maybe making it 10 yards at a time before getting distracted and quite purposefully ignoring your calls until you see us dip a hand into a pocket and bring out a treat.  When that happens, your fading hearing is suddenly turned up to 11 and your arthritis stricken legs can bimble at more than 0.2 miles per hour.

We went to the dog rescue on a sunny Saturday afternoon, and walked around that depressing place, falling in love with every dog that we saw, and being saddened seeing that some of them had been there for over two years.  You were in a cage with another Jack Russell, and we had thought you were a pretty girl but had completely ignored you as an option to join the family – terriers chase cats, right?  We showed the administrator our list of potential puppies to which she said ‘No, No and No’ because all of them were unsuitable to live with cats or be left on their own during the day.  We were so frustrated.  We wanted to give a dog a loving home but everywhere we went, there were obstacles.  The RSPCA wouldn’t consider you if you worked full time (even though we had arranged a dog walker), others we couldn’t have because children lived next door, others still had medical issues that inexperienced wombats like us would have no clue how to manage.  Dejected and sad, we started to walk away, when the woman called us back and told us she may have someone for us.  She took us back to the cage with the Jack Russells' in and said that they both might be a match and would we like to walk them to see how we got on?

Cinnamon, for that was your name at that time and a crueller fate I wouldn’t wish on any grown man than the prospect of yelling ‘Cinnamon’ across country parks and meadows, you came up to the gate first.  The woman said we could cat test you first, which rather than sitting you in a black leather chair, dimming lights and asking you questions about the history of the feline species, essentially involved taking you into a cattery and seeing if you tried to eat the cats.  We took you into the cattery and you tried to eat the cat food and completely ignored the cats. We accompanied  you for a walk round the field, you trotting along beside us and looking up every few steps as if to say ‘Am I doing this right?’  At the end of the circuit, you sat down, looked up and had a scratch.  I picked you up in my arms, you turned and licked Steve and then me, and that was that.

We collected you the next day, following a home inspection and an aside from the rescue centre as we were leaving saying ‘By the way she is half deaf, has arthritis and a heart murmur’.  They told us you were 11 and were found as a stray.  Over the coming months, we would realise how you had become a stray.  The time we went camping and thought we had lost you forever but found you in a random family’s’ tent because one of the women had a red jumper like mine on and you had decided THAT’S MY MUM!.  The time the hairdresser on the high street called me at work to say you had escaped our garden, clambered into a car outside the salon, sat there for ten minutes waiting to go on an adventure and were now licking people’s ankles whilst they got their hair done.  Or the fact that you get so distracted by other animals pee that you invariably end up a 100 yards behind us when we go for walks.

We had read all the books about making sure we were head of the pack, and you having your own bed downstairs, not letting you through the front door in front of us, not feeding you from our plates.  All the rules.  Within a week you were leaping over thresholds, sleeping in our bed and stealing whole steaks from plates.  Training never really took off with you.  You know ‘sit’ and ‘paw’ and ‘beg’ and ‘rollover’ but it is really up to you whether you can be bothered or not.  Living with 3 superior cats has perhaps meant you have adopted some of their ‘Mehness’.  Perhaps it’s just because you are such a beautiful dog that a few treats after not working for them doesn’t really matter.

When we first brought you home, we kept you in the spare room for the first day so that the cats could get used to you, and you to us.  This was a useless waste of effort.  Within 10 minutes, Esther had come up to the baby gate, you had sniffed too close and she had smacked you in the face.  She was boss.  Audrey sulked on top of the kitchen larder for a week.  We didn’t inherit Charlie until last Christmas, but even when he joined the family, you were nonplussed, letting him literally walk all over you, big cat paws squishing your face as you lay on the sofa.  The past week, all three have seemed to always be where you are.  Esther is curled up in front of the radiator.  Audrey on the armchair and Charlie keeps coming in and head-butting you every now and again.  Do they know?

We were too scared to let you off the lead the first couple of walks, in case we lost you so soon after finding you.  You managed to gnaw through the extendable lead after three outings and even if you could run away, you’d be overtaken by a sloth before you got too far, so since then you have always bumbled along at your own pace.  You never got angry at other dogs, letting even massive ones come and play.  You’d only ever bark if a puppy got too playful around you, at which point you’d yelp like you’d smoked 40 a day for 40 years.  Countless children come up to you in the street and stroke and kiss you.  Adults smile when they see you waddling along or if we are being ‘those kind of people’ and have put you in your jumper because you tremble in the cold.  You let toddlers ride you, grandmothers stroke you for hours and let us cuddle you and cuddle you and cuddle you.

We took you to the Caterham Carnival and entered you into the dog show,  ‘Best Veteran.’  Considering you’ve hardly any teeth, a coat that looks like it’s made of wire wool and dubious weird patches on your tummy, you did well coming fourth out of fourth.  The judge asked if you did any tricks.  We asked you to beg and rollover but you just sneezed twice and looked confused.  But you were saving it all up, weren’t you?  Waiting for your moment in ‘Dog with the Most Appealing Eyes’.  You did your beg, gave a big yawn and turned on the charm and came first out of 17, the crowd awwed and cheered for you and you had sausages for tea that day and a rosette for keepsies.

When we pick you up, your tail starts whirring like a helicopter.  When you are walking, your ears flap up and down.  When you are having a scratch you look like you are smiling.  When you walk down the stairs your bum goes from side to side, like you are skiing down them.  When you are dreaming, you yip and twitch and imagine being boss of the house, ruler of cats.  You get intent on licking Steve whenever he gets back from a run, trapping him into a corner and standing on him with steady purchase, licking his face for half an hour at a time.  I haven’t peed alone in 18 months.

Last summer, that awful time when our family broke apart for a while, you were confused and became stressed.  Barking lots when we left the house, sleeping in the hallway at the top of the stairs between our bedrooms, unsure who you should comfort first.  As the weeks passed, you’d start the night in one room and wake in another, making sure we both got attention.  You’d try and sit in your spot on the sofa, slowly edging us closer together on the chair.  I’m being sentimental of course, but perhaps you were trying to fix us in your own way.  Walking you allowed us to talk to each other and realise what was important to us.  Each other, you and the other fluff buckets.

You are a constant.  A wagging tail and a face so happy to see us when we walk in the door.  We used to try and trick you, walking past the front window so you saw us, then waiting until we came down the steps to the front door and seeing you scramble up on furniture, craning your head to get another look at us.  We have a 100 bones buried in our vegetable garden, dog hair on every item of black clothing we own and have never finished any kind of food at any time ever without you poking your snout in it at some point.  You like Prawn Crackers and whatever substance is on the street outside of Pizza Express in town.  We have spent hundreds of pounds on every dog food available, but after a week of eating it, you’ll turn your nose up and demand a menu change.  Your refusal to ever walk up the hill to our house is a source of mirth to neighbours and the people at the bus stop at the bottom of the road.

And now you are fading.  The vet thinks you are much older than 11, maybe 15 or 16.  When you had your first seizure in November, it was terrifying, seeing you look so lost and frightened and then thinking you were dying in my arms right then.  You started peeing in the kitchen and slowing down, some days not wanting any walk at all.  We thought it was your arthritis playing up in the cold weather.  Then you fell down the stairs.  Then you ate a bar of Green and Blacks and scared the hell out of us.  You had more fits.  We brought a new animal into the house, a lovely young thing but you hated her and wouldn’t stop barking or snapping and you weren’t the placid girl we knew.  There was something wrong.  We made sure Bo had a good home to go back to because it was upsetting you, her and us.  2 days after she went, you had another fit – your worst yet and we realised that you were slowing down.  Like a robot running out of batteries.  You started staring at the front door, scratching to be let in and out of rooms, walking in circles.

The vet said you had dementia and your kidneys weren’t looking too hot and you had epilepsy.  You got worse.  The next visit to the vet following a tumble down the stairs and a bloody nose said the kidney issues meant that there was probably heart failure on the cards. It means you are constantly coughing and hacking and your poor body is wracked with effort.  Arthritis, deafness, heart murmur, heart failure, kidney problems, dementia, epilepsy.  A list of all the reasons we should think about letting you go for.  The vet said we needed to make a decision because your quality of life just wasn’t there anymore.  But there is that one reason to keep you with us that outweighs all of them, for us, anyway.  It’s amazing how selfish you can be when you realise you are going to lose someone you love.

You have turned from a happy, bouncy, silly dog in November to what appears to be an empty vessel now. It’s all happened so quickly.  The Phoebe we know is rarely there now, disinterested in your treats, wanting stillness and sleep, not playing, not exercising.  You and I sat in the sunshine on the back step yesterday, you in my arms like a baby, for over an hour.  You looked at me in the eyes for ages.  You were so tired and your eyelids kept dropping until you fell asleep in the warmth. 

This morning, you slept until midday, in your basket, on my feet.  You woke up and walked upstairs then down, into the bathroom and back, into the garden and back then sat in the middle of the front room and just looked at me with your sad eyes and I knew you were too tired for this.  

We are taking you to the vet for the final time on Monday.  We are being selfish again and having one last weekend with you.  We’ll take you to the park and feed you steak and give you cuddles and make sure you know just how loved you are.  We aren’t ever going to have children.  You’re as close as we will get and people may think we are mad for letting a dog have such an effect on us but you are family.  I am so sad we didn’t get to have you for longer.  I’m so sorry if anything we did made any of this happen.  I hope you have been happy and know that we just want you to be free to chase rabbits somewhere else where your legs don’t hurt and everything isn’t quite so confusing.  I got very angry a while back at somebody who said I couldn’t possibly know what unconditional love is because I don’t have children.  Well I do.  I can’t ever recall being angry at you, just a constant affection and love.  And I see unconditional love every day in your eyes.

When you are gone, the empty space here will resound with echoes of you and the joy you have brought us and you will never, ever be forgotten, nor could you have been loved any more than by us these past months.

We love you Pheebs – let’s make this weekend the best ever, eh?