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“A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014.”

Sunny: One of my favorite parts of our week is Sunday morning breakfast. We eat pancakes soaked in homemade maple syrup, drinking up those sun-drenched moments and reflecting on our week. This week we talked a great deal about Ursa, as one of our friend’s had to say goodbye to their beloved dog due to cancer on Friday. Our ever-pensive firstborn reflected, “I don’t think that I’ll ever know a dog with silkier ears or who loved tennis balls as much as Ursa.” And ain’t it the truth.

Kaki: “I loved Ursa SO MUCH!” (Her favorite phrase of late is “I love you SO MUCH!” (or declarations of SO MUCH love for other living creatures in our home. These declarations come unprompted, and they are an utter delight. While I highly doubt she has much memory of Ursa, it is sweet to see her join the conversation.)

And here is an excerpt of an email that James wrote to our friend the day after their dog’s passing. He has a heart of gold, that one:

In our house on Thursday night, all of dinner was spent talking about Ursa and all the things we loved about her. Some of which was what annoyed us most – barking at every slightly strange noise, her addiction to tennis balls, her propensity to vomit only on carpets (never hardwood or tile…) We of course rehashed all the positive wonderful things too, but the point was that we missed it all. I know you’re deep in that right now…. we got to remembering what the last months were like – cleaning the bandage multiple times a day, managing the restricted diets, activity levels, our own doggie pharmacy, etc. It didn’t bother us in the least to do it, and we’d do it all again if presented the option. It became routine to break our routine for the dog.

When we finally let Ursa go, all of my attention and months of preparation had been directed toward that moment. What would it be like? Of course it was as horrible, peaceful, relieving and saddening as expected. I’ll always remember it. I spent some two-three hours therapeutically digging the grave by hand excessively deep. It felt good. I was tired. There was something about how I felt after she was in the ground that made me feel much more at ease, and with relatively few tears I was able to sleep through the night.

I wasn’t expecting the next day to be as hard. Waking up and not having to do the routine – no pills, only one dog food bowl to fill, no bandages to change…and yet all the stuff was still there – the pills, the bowls, the boxes of bandages and tape and the special harness for walks. It was definitely just as hard.

Know that we were thinking about you Friday, but that we’re also thinking about you in the days, weeks, months and times that follow. There will never be a replacement for Oscar, and there will always be a part of you left with him. Eventually, you’ll reach a place when you can sit at the dinner table on some random Thursday night and smile about serving him 7 different types of food, or taking him to the vet every few days. Until then, just know that we’re thinking about you all and wishing you can find the positive in what can be an overwhelmingly negative world.

More details about The 52 Project here. To view all the portraits in the series visit here.