I got a care package from my best friend today and she included a card received from The Oaks Veterinary Clinic in Smithfield, where I had taken Tabitha for a battery of tests at the end of December.

They had put me on their e-mailing list, so I sent them a message letting them know Tabitha had died, that they hadn’t missed anything, and that I appreciated how well they had treated her.

Nothing more was heard from them until today. It looks like the ENTIRE staff signed the card! They all included a little message.

I’m a little dumbfounded since I only took Tabitha there once, but they did call to follow up about a week into her run on medication. My friend has been taking her dogs there for years.

I know many of you are pet lovers, so I’ll share the printed message on the card. Warning: having tissues on hand. It is part of “The Once Again Prince” by Irving Townsend.

We who choose to surround ourselves with lives
even more temporary than our own
live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached.

Unable to accept its awful gaps,
we still would live no other way.

We cherish memory as the only certain immortality,
never fully understanding the necessary plan…