Stella

This post has taken me several weeks to be able to write, because it's pretty devastating. A few weeks ago, our sweet beagle, our Stella, slipped out through a door and was hit by a car that chose not to stop, and she passed away.

Aah, that is so hard to write. I am thankful for the group of teenagers who stopped and found an adult and called me and comforted Stella. I'm grateful for the woman that gave her sips of water until she passed and then hugged me so tight as I collapsed on the sidewalk sobbing. I'm grateful for the friends and neighbors that dropped everything to help me with the kids. I'm grateful, but I'm so, so, so sad.

We got Stella 13 years ago, about 6 months after we adopted Charlie. We did not adopt Stella, we spent way to much money on her, but she was the cutest little puppy you ever saw and at the time we were dumb college kids with disposable income. Stella was a mischief maker. She was a notorious food thief who had no qualms about getting on the table or counter, pulling over the trashcan, and one time eating an entire box of (wrapped) liquor filled chocolates from under the Christmas tree. (Poor Charlie got lead astray in that one, and while thankfully both dogs were fine, it was a long, gross night with too very sick and fairly drunk dogs!)

Stella loved going on adventures. If an opportunity presented itself for her to sneak out of the house, she took it. One time when she was a puppy she tried to sneak out through a hole in a brick fence and had to be rescued by the fire department. She loved to go out and meet people. Most of our neighborhood knew her and would just bring her right back to our door, but they would often tell me about how she wandered into their garage, or right into their house, and sometimes would even jump in their car. She loved people, and as awful as this whole thing is, I know she died doing what she loved and that she was surrounded by people at the end. 

We are grieving and will be for a while. To loose both our first fur babies in one year has been awful. We are pouring a lot of love into our Jello pup right now, and remembering the good, long years we had with both Charlie and Stella.