I will always be thankful for our furry, gorgeous (like, supermodel-gorgeous) girl, Ruby.
It’s been almost two years since Ruby passed on. Like other major events that happen in life, you’re not quite sure why it had to happen that way, that time, that day…
It was the same when Ruby left us on Thanksgiving Day, even though she’d seemed perfectly OK the day before.
My daughter wrote her college essay on how Ruby was the bridge that connected our family after the divorce. It was when I heard this story from her perspective as a child from a divorced family that it became clear exactly why Ruby had left us on Thanksgiving.
My daughter wrote that even though her dad and I worked as a team so that our family’s transition would be as smooth as possible, what really held us all together was Ruby. She further explained that when she and her brother would move back and forth between homes, Ruby followed them. Ruby made herself at home in both spaces, which helped my daughter to feel that she, too, could be so adaptable. If Ruby was happy and excited for the new change, she could be, as well.
Each one of us is thankful every time we are reminded of Ruby. Whether it is a jingling noise similar to the one her University of Michigan collar made, her love for Honey Nut Cheerios, how happy she was at the first snowfall as she ran inside with a flake on her nose, or how happy she was just baking in the sun on the first warm day of spring—we all have beautiful memories that still live on in our hearts.
But most of all, we’ll remember Ruby’s happy trot to the door, when one of us yelled out to her, “Ruby, let’s go go!” It didn’t matter to her which house she was off to; all that mattered was that she was with the ones she loved and who loved her.
Thank you, Ruby, for helping us figure out how to be a family, even when it looked a little different from the way it once did.
