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WATCHING SCOTTIE GROW

A Final Request, Now Honored

We've all heard it said that we should "be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it." That has happened to me and Tara-Anne.

When we were first married, we were like any young couple. We wanted a family and we tried very hard to have our own children. It wasn't meant to be. But we were okay with that after awhile because we just became the favorite Aunt & Uncle to our many nieces and nephews. My sister Shiloh has eight children, my brother Jody & his wife are getting ready to have their fifth. And though we've seen it written by someone that large families are like a "carnival", there is much more to it than that. Once you get past the carnival atmosphere of fun and games and laughter, you discover the true base of a large family ... and that's an awful lot of love.

I remember when my little nephew Scottie joined our family. His Daddy, my brother Jamie, was the most proud father I had ever seen. He and his son did everything together and were really and truly best friends, as well as Father and Son. Jamie suffered from congestive heart failure, but you'd never know it when you watched him and Scottie enjoying their playtime together. Their love and their laughter were almost contagious.

This past Summer, my brother asked me the biggest favor he could have asked. He had just undergone heart valve replacement surgery and he asked me that if anything were to happen to him, would Tara-Anne and I raise his son. Jamie's wife, the beautiful feline Kayelani, was already at the Rainbow Bridge, and I think he worried about who would take Scottie and become his parents. He & Kayelani had been the best of parents ... so in love and Jamie had been the first Dog to ever marry a cat on Dogster or Catster.

Well, the truth of the matter is ... I never wanted to raise Scottie. I wanted my brother to raise his own son. I wanted to see the total joy in Jamie's face every time he looked at Scottie.

But on Thursday, September 30th, I guess the Bridge-Keeper decided that Jamie was needed at the Bridge more than we needed him here on earth, and Kayelani came to help him make his Journey.

Tara-Anne and I are now raising Scottie for Jamie, and we love him as much as we could ever have loved one of our own. What a privilege to honor my brother's last request. We will raise him with the same loving environment he has always known, and we will make certain that Jamie & Kayelani live on in his heart forever as his "true parents". And we'll know that we've been very successful when one day, when Scottie is grown into a fine man, someone will see him and say to us, "Isn't he just like Jamie!"

Scottie, I know I could never replace your Daddy, because Jamie is irreplaceable. But you will never want for love or anything your heart desires.

And Tara-Anne will love you like her own, even though you had the most wonderful Mommy of all in Kayelani. But Tara-Anne saw this, and it's just how she feels about you, our precious little Boy ...

"Not flesh of my flesh,
nor bone of my bone.
but still, miraculously,
my own.

Never forget
for a single minute
you didn't grow under my heart,
but in it."

We love you, Sweetie!
Uncle Gunnar & Aunty Tara-Anne

(Scottie is Dogster # 1060976)