I also know this type of loss too well. No one can or should tell you when you should be done grieving. It's been over a year now since we lost Halley and I know now that I'll never really be over it. We just reorganized some cabinets and one was "Halley's Cabinet" where her collar & tags, ashes, etc. are kept. My husband did it and he said that it was really "hard". This is the same guy that held my hand and stayed strong while we had her put to sleep and then came home and put her things away so that I wouldn't have to. A year later it hit him like a ton of bricks. After all of this time, I still can't type things like this without tears, so please don't let anyone tell you that can't "still" be mourning a beloved family member. Most of the time I'm ok now, but I know that I'll never stop missing her. It does get better though because I think that we just come to terms with the fact that we'll always miss them, not that we ever really stop. Does that make sense?
We hadn't rescued a dog since our oldest son was born (we did before, though) so after losing Halley it just seemed right somehow to adopt from a rescue. It took us nearly a year to start looking and now in our case I wish that we'd adopted sooner. Cassie & Sammy don't take Halley's place, just like Halley didn't take Cara or Sally's places, but they've added so much love and happiness to our lives and now our home doesn't feel empty anymore. Daisy is so much happier now too, so for us adopting rescue dogs has been a huge success. I'm so sorry that you are going through this, please let us know if we can help. ((hugs))
