First Spring without Pipke

It's now more than four months ago that I have been outside in our garden.

It's now the opposite of all the other years that we live in our house.

Before: equal which season it was, there hasn't been one day that our backdoor stayed closed for longer than four hours.

And now – it was Sunday March 21. Spring was in the air, and between the rain showers, on a sunny moment, for the first time in my life I pruned the Clematis without Pipke.

Believe me: Spring has lost it's luster. It was hard for me to hear the birds sing again and to work whole alone without my assistant.

Everything in the garden reminds me to her. While I pruned the Clematis I found an old dirty feather of her hanging high between the branches. I took it, cherished it, and put it in my pocket. I even can't throw away a dirty old feather of her.

What a difference without her. What an emptiness.

I can find less joy in life as when she still was here. That missing feeling will always stay. A sunny day makes that missing feeling worse, because: then we were always (as often as we could) outside together with her.

Now – I only come outside because there's work to do.

I miss taking care for her, her calling, her warm cuddles. She brought so much joy in our life. Really, her absence weights very heavy.

This picture of her was taken on March, 24 last year.

(I know this isn't a cheerful picture, but this is the way it was.)

You can see here, how bad her situation was then allready. We really had luck that she survived it one more time.

From then on we lived the most intensive time of our lives.

They say: life goes on, but I still must find a way to overcome this grief. I must cherish the beautiful memories.

However, at the moment we are still busy to find someone to publish Pipke's story as a book.

We had one answer of a Charity Cause for Animals. They said: “Thank you for your thoughtfulness in offering the opportunity to share Pipke's heartwarming story. As you can imagine, we receive many requests to enter into partnerships of this kind. Rather than choose among so many worthwhile projects, it is our policy to regretfully decline all such offers. We hope you understand”.

I really didn't know that they receive so many requests like this, but I can understand their policy.

So, we will have to wait for what the others say.

If we achieve no result this way, then maybe we will have to search for an other approach.

Maybe we will have to think to publish it as an E book.

Of course, I will also publish it on my blog. I will keep my promise.

I will keep you informed.