Tag: Youk’s Last Ride

Different

Today marks three months since Youk crossed the Rainbow Bridge.

We still absolutely love our full-time RV lifestyle, but things are different now.

We’re slowly adjusting, but we do have our moments when a small reminder can overtake us with emotion.  That’s the way that grief works, though.  You never get over it.  You never outgrow it.  You never heal from it.  You simply evolve through it.  Grief is like the ocean waves.  One day they’re calm, the next day they can be rough, no matter what, they’re ever constant.  Whether a pet, a family member, or a friend.  They take a piece of us with them when they leave, but they also leave a piece of themselves with us in the form of memories. 

So much of our lives over the past fifteen years revolved around Youk.  Before we traveled full-time, and even more so once we started traveling.  Anytime that we went anywhere, we first had to make sure that Youk would be safe while we were gone.  Running the generator so that we could turn the air conditioner on for him if we were doing something that he couldn’t do with us.  Always checking to see what places were pet friendly so that he could experience it with us.  It’s just what we did.  Anyone with a pet, certainly understands what I’m talking about.

Our life is still great, but now it’s different.

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Youk’s Last Ride

It was a hot day, but we were very excited to be on a volunteer project again with many of our fellow RV friends.  Mainly because of my book signing schedule, we hadn’t worked a volunteer project since September of 2022, so this had been a long-time coming.

As Youkilis has aged, he really minded hot weather.  He would lay around on hot days and not move much at all.  This is the way that he was when we arrived at the project.  It was the third day in a row of pretty hot weather, so Sandy and I really didn’t think much of it.  We just told him that tomorrow would be cooler.

After we had our volunteer meeting and tour of the project facility, Sandy, Youk, and I went over to sit and talk with our friends, Jennie and Eric, who we’ll be traveling through Canada and Alaska with this summer.  Youk got his customary pets and love when we first got over to their rig, but it didn’t take him long to just settle and lay down while we chatted.  It was starting to cool down, so I thought that we were on the home stretch and he’d be back to his old self soon.

When we started to pack our chairs up and head back to our rig for the night, Youk couldn’t get up on his own.  I helped him up, but again, didn’t think too much about it and just figured that he was still just beat from the heat that we had experienced over the past three days in the desert on our way to the project.

Monday morning when we woke up, he was laying in the exact same spot where he was when we went to bed.  Normally, he would change locations during the night.  If he went to bed near the hallway, many times he would be sleeping by the couch in the living room or in front of our bathroom door in the hallway when we got up.  That was just his routine.  When I told him to get up so that we go potty and eat breakfast, he tried, but could not get up on his own, just like the night before at Eric and Jennie’s rig.  Now we were starting to get concerned. 

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