Hope is with Beau and Sonny now, in a beautiful meadow where they can all run and play and be happy and feel wonderful. For those of you who did not know Hope or don’t know much about me, I’ll give you the condensed version.

Hope is the 3rd Frenchie I’ve lost in 2 ½ years. The other 2 were my FBRN Frenchie boys in November of 2006. I lost my boys within 5 days of each other that November. By December, we adopted Hope and Faith, also from FBRN. At the time, I was devastated over losing my boys, just completely heartbroken, but still ready and willing to open my heart and home to another little broken soul (or souls as it turned out) that needed us. Enter Hope and Faith. Little did I know how much I needed them. They helped me heal from the loss of my boys more than they’ll ever know.

You could never get mad at Hope, no matter what she did. Well, I couldn’t anyway. She would grab the end of the toilet paper and run away with it in her mouth, leaving a trail behind her. She would eat the leaves off my plants (all non-poisonous!) leaving little bits of green on the floor as evidence. She would gnaw on the edge of the bottom step leaving pieces of wood on the floor that we would find when we walked up the stairs. And even if she got caught red-pawed she would go into what we called her hula dance with a huge grin on her face as if to say, you caught me! Now what are you gonna do, huh?! And she would wag her whole bottom almost in a circle just like a hula girl. It was the most charming and funniest thing to see! You couldn’t help just laughing along with her.

She made me laugh so much and so often and little by little my heart began to heal. Because little by little she (and Faith of course) was working her way into it more and more. A wise woman told me way back when I lost my boys and had just adopted the girls that I would look at them one day and tell them “I love you, I really, really love you”. Well, that day definitely came, long before yesterday and I never thought I would be able to love that deeply again, but I did, I do.

Oh my sweet Hope, how I will miss you! I will always love you, always and forever. And don’t worry, I will take really good care of the other half of your heart, Faith. Give my boys a big kiss and I can’t wait for the day when we are all together again. Goodbye, my sweet love, goodbye.

Jeanne