Smile through heartache

Life can be painful. You never know when it will happen, but some of life's most painful times will come and how you live through them is how you build resilience. Heartache can often cripple people. That numb hollow feeling or lack of feeling you find yourself reeling from. How do you get through it? How do I get up? The sun still comes up despite my sorrow. Try to smile through your pain. Try to breathe and exhale. Let yourself feel but know that this too shall pass. I am currently going through a great loss. The loss of my beloved Eddy, my Rhodesian Ridgeback dog. He was my boy. He passed away last Saturday evening. So I am writing this from personal experience. The pain is real. The grief is fresh. A dear friend said to me "it is said one cannot know great loss without having known great love." So very true. I deeply loved Eddy. So now I have to dig deep and celebrate my endless capacity for love and the love he and I shared. Celebrate the ten years of joy he brought into my life and since he was a service dog, the therapy and joy he brought into the hundreds of other lives. So smile though my heart is aching, smile though my heart is breaking and be grateful that I was blessed with such an incredible blessing.