goodbye Barkley

Today was a sad day. Chet's dog, Barkley, was run over and killed by a truck he was chasing down our dirt road. Chet is absolutely heartbroken, which breaks my heart. This is the dog he got when he was so sick and wanted a dog of his own so badly, and the two of them have been inseperable since then. The only time Barkley wasn't under Chet's feet was if Chet was gone. All we had to say to him was 'Barkley, where's your boy?" and that little dog would get all excited and start barking.

Chet helped Jack bury him, and then he built the cross. The kids all gathered a bunch of the flowers that are growing in our yard. You can't see it because he wrote in pencil, but Chet put a eulogy of sorts on the cross. It says, "Dear Barkley. You were my best friend. God I love you. I will never have another dog like you. And if I ever have another dog I will teach it to not chase cars on the street. Love Chet." ( I would probably laugh about that last part a little if I wasn't feeling so down tonight.)

It hasn't been a good afternoon in a lot of ways, and I am not trying to be cryptic, but I just don't want to talk about it all right now. We have had a lot of bad news, but we are going to get through it like we always do.

There were good things today... I had parent teacher conferences for all of the kids in school, and all five of them are working hard and doing a great job. All of them have worked really hard in the subjects they have been struggling with and have brought their grades up in those subjects, and Jessica and Chet both made honor roll. I am really proud of all of them tonight.