It’s been four long days since Nina left this world and I’m slowly letting go. Her belongings are mostly out of the house.  I chose her collar to hold as a keepsake since its sparkles remind me of her simmering personality.

I haven’t been sleeping the good, long way I’d been sleeping. I’m back to early morning wake-ups.  It’s not a good sign, but I think I’m okay.  One thing I did this morning was to browse through my video files of the past couple years.  And I happened upon a few silly memories and a few that had a little sadness, too.

Ridiculously, here’s Nina in the woods doing a little Reversed Running

using the SnapChat app.  You see the old logging road where we did most of our walks while we lived here. I’ll never be able to go up there without thinking on Nina.  That’s okay, though. She loved sniffing and “hunting” and in some cases Getting Tired Digging.

In her younger days she wouldn’t have paused to rest her body, but age has a way of catching up. You see in the video that at 12 years old, she’s really able to dig that dirt like a machine.  I will miss the sound of the dirt flying, but won’t miss refilling the holes around the house that she would immediately redig as soon as I’d fill them.

Speaking of vibrancy, here’s Nina with her dogmate, Willie, Running In The House.

So much happiness and excitement! No idea what it was about, but those two spent Willie’s whole life looking for the next adventure. Willie will miss her big sis. Speaking of adventure, here’s Nina showing me with her expression, using a dreadful app called My Talking Pet , what she thinks about waiting for me to take her for a walk.

Our walks were rain or shine, for the most part.  In later years, Nina was more understanding about my lack of enthusiasm for walking in foul weather.  But if it wasn’t too cold, I could be convinced to brave the woods even if it meant Going Around The Puddle.

Right now, today, it’s actually snowing (On May 9th!) even though we recently had some good Spring weather. I am not in a hurry to take a walk this morning.

Rewatching this video of Nina last year when where was hiding the food that she’d vomited up reminds me of Nina’s tense last week as she had trouble holding down her food. It’s a silly little video I call Nina’s BellyAche.

(Note: The video is a montage that includes a trip I took to look at some weaving looms while good little Nina waited in the car. Wait to see her at the end.) The conceit of the silly video is that she had actually tried to hide her vomit with a plastic bag she’d found lying around.  She’s not hiding that she vomited, though.  She’s hiding the food from whoever might try to eat it. One of her weirdnesses.

I’ll end with a happier note.  Nothing was happier for Nina than licking the Peanut Butter out of the jar.

We did it in two stages.  First, she’d lick the top half of the jar that she could reach.  Then I would saw the jar in half and give her the bottom half to finish off.  Those were good times.  I miss my happy baby friend. RIP. 😭