Our dear and very talented friend Jill sent us this beautiful collage earlier this week. We will definitely find a special place for it in our new home.

I can't believe we lost him a week ago today. It feels like a million years have passed, or sometimes just minutes.

I wish that I could reply personally to each of you, but the outpouring of sympathy, support and love we have received in response to Dub's death has been truly overwhelming. The last several days have been difficult, but we have taken so much comfort in your comments, email and text messages, and we are so very grateful. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

He was still warm.

I placed my hand on his shoulder, and the fact that he was warm startled me. Though his face, which was turned away from me, was obviously lifeless, he was warm and I half expected him to murmur at me, rolling onto his back for scratches as if I had awakened him from a nap.

I touched his shoulder, stroking it, and I bent my face down to him, kissing his ears, soaking his soft fur with tears, and I told him over and over that I loved him, so very much, and that I was sorry.

I didn't get to say goodbye.

On Tuesday morning, after a car ride in which he complained a little but was mostly wonderful, an exam in which he complained a little but was mostly wonderful, I never expected that the last time I would see him alive was when they whisked him away in his carrier to get his blood drawn.

Even yesterday when we called to check in on him, and were told that his fever had broken, that he had eaten and was doing great, I fully expected that we would bring him home today and that everything was going to be fine. We spent most of the car ride back home being silly, reading the road signs and goofing on them trying to stay awake, looking forward to seeing our boy again. "Dubby wants to go to Orange." "Dubby wants to visit the Bruce Museum." "Dubby can't wait to meet his new bathtub."

This little dream cottage we are moving to - he's never going to see it. From the first time we stepped inside, Mike and I looked at each other, and we were both thinking the same thing: how excited Dub was going to be to have his very own stairs to run up and down and up and down oh boy oh boy Dubby loves the stairs! Oh, yes, he would approve.

But now he's just gone. He's not coming to the little dream cottage with us. He's not going to supervise our packing, and he's not going to serenade us in the car all the way there as we follow the movers. He's just gone and I can't get my head around the fact that I'm never going to hold him again, carrying him around the apartment like a baby, as I sing to him and he nuzzles me and Mike laughs at us both. He's never again going to hop onto the table to approve our wine choices, or mill around in the kitchen mewing at us as we prep and cook dinner.

We're not going to be able to watch him explore our new home, a home we had so looked forward to showing him, a home - with its windows and skylights and those stairs - we were convinced he would absolutely love.

When pain, stress, anxiety cripple me, I am never again going to be able to pick him up and just hold him, his purring so rhythmic and soothing, the smell of the top of his head the most wonderful, comforting thing. When we were in the room with him after the end, I spent all of my energy trying to inhale every bit of his scent into my memory, kissing the top of his head and the backs of his ears and neck like I did every morning when he jumped into my lap for some loving.

Even though the girls are still here, the apartment feels empty. My heart feels empty. Dubby went through too much in his too-brief lifetime, but for all of that, he was the happiest, most gregarious, charming and loving creature I have ever known. I have lost beloved pets before, but nothing has hurt this much.

Goodbye, my love. I'll never forget you.