Elsie

Elsie passed away peacefully in her sleep last night, 2019-09-01, around midnight. We’re not much good at eulogizing, but there are a few important things we’d like to say.

Firstly, we’d like to ask everyone to be kind to each other and allow us all to grieve in our own ways. It’s naturally a very emotional time for us and for a lot of you and there’s a very human tendency we all have to look for answers, or reasons, or blame - and not finding any, sometimes we get angry or defensive just because someone isn’t reacting to the tragedy in the way we would want. Hopefully we can all try to set that tendency aside and find comfort in each other as best as we’re able.

Elsie was a specially-bred Golden, and we’ve kept in touch with her breeder and informed about news of her lineage. Although her ten years was certainly too brief for us, it has been the normal span for her relatives. Her breeding was directed in pursuit of temperament and agility, but not longevity.

We hope you will be comforted — as we are — to know that she lived a much richer life with us than she could have otherwise expected. And that her last day with us was a special day for her - she loved when visitors to the house would meet her and she had several very loving visitors yesterday. It’s also a comfort to us that it was both a peaceful and sudden passing, at home and surrounded by her friends. It’s a rare gift to not have to spend a long time in decline and worry.

We know we - and many of you - will feel this sadness for some time to come. Despite that, we intend to do our best to approach it, and life generally, with the same calm optimism that was Elsie’s greatest gift to her friends.