Grief is a sneaky thing

Grief is a reaction to loss.
There are 5 stages to grief  and they do not necessarily have to occur in the order listed.
Denial 
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

The sneaky thing about grief is that it occurs with any kind of loss not just death. Tonka is still with us and yet  I can look back at the past 7 months of Tonka's downhill slide and insert myself into all of those stages. Some stages more than once.
I have also come to realize that there is loss within loss and that starts you down the path all over again.
We have adapted and settled into a new routine that still allows him some mobility and I do believe he is still a very happy boy. I don't believe that dogs allow themselves to get down about what they cant do for very long. Humans are a different story and llately I have been saddened by the loss of what we had. I try very hard to stay grateful for what we do have but every so often sneaky grief comes by and reminds me of what we can't do anymore.
It's little things like not be able to see him run around on a wet baseball field scooping up mud with his nose and then finding me to wipe it off on. Never again walking to the bus stops to say hi to the kids on the way to school in the morning. Not being able to watch him run and wrestle with his friends as if he could see. One of the things I really miss is our long walks everyday no matter what the weather. Every walk was an adventure.

So I mourn the loss of the life we had and try to stay positive about the future, but some days it is hard.