A Year Later, There are New Beginnings

It's been a year since The Tide went on to dog heaven. A whole year. It is so hard to believe that she has been gone that long. There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about her and miss her. She was a good dog, y'all! The best really. I think she will always be the number one dog in my heart and I will always miss her.

I've thought a lot about her the past couple of days, relived the moment she collapsed, thought about how she cried out when I left her alone in the bedroom, thought about having to make the decision to put her down. There were a lot of similarities about this weekend in 2014 and the same weekend one year ago. One year ago on Saturday I saw Iron Man 3 at the movie theater. This year, I went to see Captain America. Last year on Sunday I had lunch at Casa Blanca; this year on Sunday, I did the same. I think the only real difference in the same weekend in two different years is that last year it was raining like mad and this year the weather was beautiful - like a new beginning.

I thought today, THE day, would be incredibly sad. It wasn't. I was too busy at work and church to dwell on it, which was a blessing and so there wasn't really time to dwell on the sadness of one year ago. There was, however, happiness to overshadow the sadness. The first bit of happiness was that my cousin Ashley gave birth to a beautiful and big baby boy. He was born at 12:27 a.m. - life to replace and overshadow death.

The second happy thing that happened today was that the newest friendly neighborhood Publix opened in Huntsville. This one is less than four miles from my house and sits across from the hospital at the new Twickenham Square development. I was so excited when I heard they were building a Publix there and so, of course, I had to visit on opening day.

Y'all, it was a madhouse. They built a parking garage across from it so it makes it seem like a big city grocery store. The parking garage was packed and there were people everywhere. I seriously didn't expect that many people to be there. I walked the perimeter of the store and picked up the three things I needed and left as quick as possible. I didn't even get a chance to register for all the giveaways! I'll give it another go in a week or so after all the excitement settles down and maybe it won't be as insane as it was today.

So, what could have been a terribly sad day was blessed with new beginnings. A new baby cousin and a new neighborhood grocery store - happiness to overshadow the sadness this day holds. I say happiness trumps sadness any day of the week and I'm glad this day had a silver lining.