Last year, at the onset of my 49th birthday, I started a new project here on TharpSter.org to chronicle some of the more memorable events of my 40’s.  At the same time, I had some other goals in mind to finish off this decade with a bang.

I was going to take care of a few things that I was putting off or that I had never really addressed.  I’ve addressed those items over the last year.  More importantly, a few more wonderful opportunities came up and worked their way into this grand scheme of accenting the last ten years of my life.

I’ll be writing about those events soon enough before I turn 50.

In the meantime, there’s one particular event that took place in the waning months of my 40’s that I never fathomed happening.

But it did.

Hope, my 55 pound brindle ball of joy passed away last night.

You know…..

I’ve sat here at my pc for the last two hours attempting to write some brilliant send-off for my beloved pit bull Hope.

When I do this, I’m never at a loss for words.  I stay focused on getting my point out and don’t let outside distractions get me off track.

Yet as I write this, I’m reading responses to the announcement I made on Facebook last night.  I specifically waited until after we could tell our daughter before I made it public.

This morning, I open up Facebook Messenger on my phone for some unknown reason, and find that there’s other news I’ve made public a little earlier than I should have.  I feel absolutely lousy for doing that.  It was an honest mistake, but even still….

At the same time, I’m fielding another message from my fifth grade teacher via the same application.  Only it’s not my fifth grade teacher.  It’s some idiot posing as my fifth grade teacher advertising something.  My first clue was that his stated birthday just happens to be the year I was in fifth grade.  That, and my fifth grade teacher sure as hell doesn’t reach out to me, especially via Messenger.

And then I go look at that picture of Hope I posted on Facebook last night.

And then I look at the last picture I took of Hope, just before……..

I think I’m going to hate that shade of pink tape used to hold her IV in place for quite some time.

Her empty kennel sits in the living room.

Her invisible fence collar is on the table next to me.

Normally she would be here at my side, nudging my arm off of the keyboard and demanding attention.

The very first time I ever saw that dog, she was laying on her side, taking a nap in a field just outside of the parking garage at work.

The very last time I ever saw that dog, she was laying on her side on a pad on the floor of a room at the veterinary clinic designed specifically for one task.

It’s all that stuff that happened between those two times that should resonate.