and Afterwards...

It has been a while since my last entry and I apologise. In the 4 weeks since Bomber died, I've found it difficult to focus let alone write about him without becoming incredibly sad even though we've just had a magnitude 7.8 quake and flooding. In fact about the only thing missing at the moment is a plague of locusts and the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

The funny thing is that the support we've received from friends has been nothing short of incredible.

This contrasts so markedly from a few years back when Ally, our little black cat died. At work I was sad and when asked why, was shocked at how many people said "ah well, it's just a cat". They amazingly expected that to make me feel better.

It didn't

In fact it simply made me want to punch them in their insensitive smug idiotic faces - I didn't of course (but it was ever so tempting).

With Bombers passing, things could not have been any more different.

When we got home with Bombers body to bury him, there were flowers on our doorstep. That was just the beginning. Friends from the greyhound collective on facebook banded together to create a photo-book of him, and we've had more flowers. My family and my sisters in-laws both donated to Greyhounds as pets and sent us a beautiful block mounted canvas print of Bomber and Lottie cuddled up on the sofa together.

Not long after this a delegation of greyhound owning friends popped over with a tree and lots of food. It was wonderful. More recently we received a lovely picture of Bombie in his bathtub (he had a habit of hopping in water troughs and old bath tubs being used as water troughs. We called him Bombie the fish because of this) from the amazingly talented Elizabeth Dodds. I was so choked up with emotion when I got this picture I was literally lost for words and couldn't speak.

The thing is words cannot express how much all this kindness has meant to us.

Being surrounded by people who actually get just how painful it is to lose a much loved pet has really helped a lot. It has been humbling and has shown us just how amazing our friends and family are.

Family aside, my saint-like wife has been incredible. it has been tough for her and we've both cried rivers. Lottie has been sad and a lot quieter. Not a day doesn't go by without her, Lottie or I feeling incredibly sad. I guess that oft used cliche of "time heals all" must apply.

I know this is perhaps the shortest blog post I've written in a while, but I want to say use it to say a huge thank-you to everyone for their kind words, support for just being so understanding. It means a lot to us and I hope that somehow we can repay all the kindness, sensitivity and consideration that all these lovely people have shown us.