The house is quiet this morning. It’s quiet almost every morning. But today, the silence seems a little deeper. That’s because this morning is the first morning without Lucy, our family dog.

Lucy died yesterday in our backyard. She had been fighting congestive heart failure for a little over a year. And yesterday morning, her little heart finally gave in.

Prior to 2012, our family of six lived in an apartment. The kids always wanted a dog, but I told them that we couldn’t get a dog until we lived in a house. In 2012, our family moved into a house. A few months later, while driving past the church around the corner from our house, the kids started yelling, “Dad! There’s a puppy tied to the fence at the church!” After we parked at home, the kids went to go see the puppy. The puppy had somehow untied herself and was trotting down the sidewalk to our kids. And that’s how Lucy joined our family.

A few months later, one of our daughter’s friends told her she found a little puppy abandoned behind a hamburger joint and asked if we wanted to adopt her. And that’s how Biscuit joined our family.

Both Lucy and Biscuit filled something our family needed. And for over a decade, both brought fun, excitement, laughter, joy and love in new dimensions to our family. Biscuit died in June 2023. And now Lucy is gone as well.

They were our family’s dogs. They were part of our lives and memories for a long time. Our family has experienced significant change over the last several years. We lost Debbie’s mom in 2019. Our children grew, got jobs, found love, got married and moved out. Yet Lucy and Biscuit seemed to anchor us to a phase in life that was quickly disappearing.

And now both of them are gone.

So as I sit in the silence of our home this morning, I keep waiting to here the jingle of Lucy’s collar, her bark from outside to be let in, the click of her claws as she walked down the hall. And in this morning’s silence, I also keep waiting to hear one of my children yell, “Hey, Dad!” or “Dad, could you…” or just the noisy bustle of everyone getting ready for a new day. But there’s only silence.

I miss our kids and our dogs and the life we all had together in our home.

Yet while I feel sadness this morning, I’m not feeling sorry for myself. In fact, just the opposite. Debbie and I are friends with all four of our adult children. We love spending time together with them and their spouses. Whenever we get together, there are plenty of hugs, story-telling, laughter, and genuine love. I’m a very rich man! But to get to this phase in my life, I’ve had to let go of the previous phase of my life — one that I’m deeply missing this morning.

Soon, Debbie will wake up and we’ll start our day together. The silence will transition into conversation, laughter, and we’ll enjoy a love built over a lifetime. I cherish her and our life together, through all the changes. And I’m excited by the future we face together, whether the days are filled with either silence or noise.