I don’t want to tell you this because I don’t want it to be true, but we said goodbye to my beloved cookie last week. Her smile and spunk brightened my days for over thirteen years and I miss her dearly. Thirteen years! I am the luckiest, and what more would I give.
Cookie was my sidekick, my frontman, my best friend, my real life teddy bear, my soul puppy. As long as Cookie was there, I was never alone. I can almost feel her snuggled up next to me now. Cookies got me through the darkest days and brightened the best. He put me through countless long days and long nights as we built this website from scratch. He tested almost every recipe, whether I wanted him to or not.
In her earlier years, Cookie had a terrible tendency to shoot out the front door like a rocket, inspiring immense gratitude for every day we had together. He then received a terminal cancer diagnosis, lymphoma, and defied the odds to live another two and a half years. I always dreamed of taking care of her in her old age, and this is what I had to do. Over the past year, she has lost her hearing and her health has deteriorated, which has proved more difficult and complicated than I expected. He died of old age, and while I will always wonder if I made the right decisions every step of the way, I find some peace and comfort in knowing that we spent all of his best days together. A dog can’t be cuter than this.
Cookie came at the perfect moment in my life, when I was fresh out of college and learning to live on my own. She has walked with me all the way through marriage and motherhood. He left me exactly where I wanted to be in my thirties, with my loving husband and our baby girl. My heart is so full and broken at the same time.
The cookies were awesome and so was our bond. I’ve made the most of our time together for what I have now, yet I feel so emotional about our special time together as Cookie and Kate. It can be your gentle reminder to appreciate what you have.
Thank you for cooking with us and finding joy in his antics. I’ll be back soon to share more photos and some of my favorite cookie memories with you. He was truly the greatest.