I’m sad to announce that yesterday, my 18 year and some odd month old miniature pinscher Ruby passed away at approximately 5p ET.  As someone said today in a kind email to me…

“So sorry to hear about your dog.  I know that it can be a really sad loss for us, especially we GLBT people.  Often our pets are our babies.”

So true, and, for Ruby, whose care had become more time and energy consuming over her last few months, I think the more I put into caring for her, the more I cared about her.  So the loss is extra hard.

But even in my grief, I am trying to keep perspective.  I have great memories of her and I have so much still to be grateful for in my life today.

Thanks to everyone who have called and sent well wishes.  Especially memorable were words such as: ‘as long as she lived it was obvious you loved her and cared well for her’ and ‘remember that you aren’t alone and many have traveled this road before you’.

Your words of comfort really DO help.  I did get a good night’s sleep last night and today I feel better.  This blog post is in honor of Ruby’s memory and I know it’s cathartic for me to post about it here to my online ‘family’.

Ruby was a ‘one in a million dog’ in many ways.

I don’t know about you but I’m always looking for examples of true, heart rending stories showing the real life, negative impacts of heterosexism and homophobia on families.   True stories that everyone, even people who follow religious belief systems that deny the fact that gay people exist, have to sit up and take notice of.

Well, I saw a commercial the other day about a really touching movie that is coming to the Lifetime channel this month that might ‘fit the bill’.  Prayers for Bobby is the tragically true story of a gay teen who commits suicide because of his mother’s rejection of who he was due to her religious beliefs, and how losing her son forces her to question and then, reconsider, her position.  Sigourney Weaver plays the lead and, that fact alone should draw some of us to tune in!  

But, seriously, Prayers for Bobby looks like a ‘must see’ movie for all of us who ‘get it’ and those who don’t…(yet)