A Special Tribute for My Best Boy Ever, Skyler Judas 🤍
As I sit here engulfed in the stronghold of the grief and sorrow that comes after saying goodbye forever, I’m reminded that some of the best ‘soup for the soul’ is to dedicate time to pouring out the many deeply heartfelt sentiments and feelings that manifest until they’ve become sufficiently revealed.
Communicating these feelings is the simplest way to help release some of the pains of loss. Support from others and seeking connection are other important practices in these times.
Most people know the struggles of loss, surely everyone will be affected by its difficulties in their lifetime, and all people need support from time to time.
Learning how to refocus, repair, and cope with new realities that include the loss of a dependent so dear, isn’t as common as silently enduring the suffering.
Like many people, I have staggered through much of life’s journeys without knowing how to speak from my heart, how to truly reach out to others, or how to communicate through difficult emotions. I’m still slowly learning and this will be an attempt like none other I’ve endured.
I haven’t written anything this personal for many years, so this will be a unique journey.
I’m content putting forth as much effort into this tribute as my heart feels it needs.
A significant force to the very beating of my heart is gone forever.
I’m grieving heavily from the loss of my Beautiful Boxer Dog,
🤍Skyler🤍.
Our pets are some of the most precious gifts to our existence.
The love and lives we share are impeccably unique to any other connection.
I’ve raised 4 boxers over the years, getting my first one about 15 years ago.
I feel lucky to have had lots of experience with many dogs and many breeds in my lifetime.
I’ve found specific enjoyment in the Boxer breed, even though there’s plenty of concern for health complications and their lifespan is usually shorter, around 10 years old, they’ve been my dog of choice, with a ‘love at first sight’ appeal to the breeds’ commonly shared characteristics.
My first Boxer, Chase Man, was a beautiful traditional color for the breed standard. Fawn with a black mug and a thin white strip just above his nose. He was one of a large litter and was very close with all his siblings, most of them leaning on him to snuggle in baby pictures. He was a huge purebred akc puppy and eventually turned out to be a 100 pound adult.
Chase was a very healthy, strong, happy, and handsome daddy’s boy, but around the age of 2, after finding it very difficult to leave him at home alone, I began to feel like we could all benefit from getting another dog, a baby brother for our Big Chase.
I thought that maybe it might make life easier on all of us in some way, and of course, I hoped our new baby would become a mama’s boy.
Carter James, was a strikingly sharp mix of brindle and reverse brindle, white socks, a flashy chest, and some white nicely decorating his facial features. He was so adorable and did some unique things, like sit on my lap and push his lips on mine, as if to give me a kiss like a human not a lick from a dog. It was something he did a lot and I loved it. Chase was also madly in love and everything looked complete.
Carter was Chase’s biological brother, sharing the same mother, different father. He was the only one in his litter due to complications his mother suffered towards the end of pregnancy, causing her to lose one of the two pups she was carrying. We were concerned about this, but the timing seemed right and we were so hopeful for everything to work out. Knowing we would give him a great home with lots of love, care, and his very own big brother, we adopted our new baby boy.
At just 2 and a half years old, Carter lost his life due to severe epilepsy and the medical systems inability to remedy those complications despite the thousands of dollars we spent into the solution.
After months of medication not helping, he suffered an event that put him in the hospital long term, eventually leaving no choice but to say goodbye far too soon.
That was tragic, shocking, heartbreaking, and quickly became depressing and paralyzing.
As someone that -since childhood- has had trouble even killing a bug that’s in the house, signing those euthanasia papers and saying goodbye to my 2 year old put me into a long term haze of sadness.
Chase was just as noticeably devastated.
He was visibly needing another furry companion.
I wasn’t sure I was ready to get a puppy, but I knew it would help Chase, who was beyond ready, so 6 months after our loss, we brought Chase’s new brother into the family, no relation other than through adoption. They loved each other instantly, and for the first time, I remained slightly disconnected, as I continued to grieve, but there was no doubt, Brick was the puppy Chase needed.
Brick K9 was a sleek looking sealed reverse brindle, which looked like a shiny black tuxedo in regular lighting, and a cool brown/black look in sunlight, a flashy chest with a thin white stripe that went from his nose and up between his eyes. Brick was a bit shy, but always very sweet. He unfortunately began to have health problems very young, and despite years of vet visits and medications, it never resolved in his lifetime.
I thought I was happy with 2 dogs, but due to Brick’s health issues, I felt like it would be smart to protect myself and us in some way. Feeling the hindsight of the loss of Carter, with Brick so continuously unwell, I convinced myself I needed to use good foresight and get another Boxer to add to the family, a third one, just in case something happened, I felt like this would slightly protect from, yet again, the possibility of absolute devastation by way of another loss.
Plus, Chase was very much a daddy’s boy, Carter was the mama’s baby that we lost, Brick was more for Chase, and I still needed a baby that was more drawn to my attention.
I had a calendar of Boxers puppies at the time and there was a picture of a beautiful white boxer with a brindle patch on his eye and ear. I hadn’t had one that color yet, so I began to do some research.
White Boxer dogs are more prone to being deaf and/or blind, given the absence of pigment needed for those functions to work properly.
The coloration around the eye and ear should ensure sight and hearing in at least those areas.
I looked for a dog like the one from the calendar for more than 2 years, which felt like forever, all the while imagining with great anticipation my new -especially searched for and carefully selected- baby boy.
I had come up with a bunch of options for what to name him during my search, focusing on his coat color for inspiration. Names like Sugar, Powder, Cloud 9, Angel, Fluffy, Cotton, and so on until I came up with more of a name I liked rather than a product, object or slogan.
I had never before spent so long looking for such a specific dog and planning the name. The other ones seemed to happen almost as fast as they were thought of, but this time everything was very different, with much more dedication towards an exact outcome.
Skyler Judas was born on St Patrick’s Day, March 17th 2015 on an Amish farm in Pennsylvania. Stunningly glowing a brilliant sparkling bright white with a brindle eye patch that touched part of his ear, just like the model pup from the calendar.
Many things seemed to fall into place, indicating that everything was just right and it felt like he was perfect boy!
I had finally officially found my New Gorgeous Dog Son🤍Skyler🤍
We traveled to Pennsylvania to pick him up, and sure enough, I was instantly in love.
At any point while writing this I could have taken a turn, cut things out, omitted more than I have, sped things up, skipped more life events, and proceeded with cliche sayings like, “the rest is history” and “he was always the best boy,” but that couldn’t possibly convey the true meanings behind those words, so I’m holding myself accountable to some context that appropriately paints a vivid enough picture for the truest forms of compassionate understandings.
If I had neglected to add the above into this tribute, you couldn’t possibly imagine how special he was already even before he was born, how much my heart was yearning for specifically him in my life, how much he already meant to us in our home, how he was longed for and searched for for years, how devastation and suffering had led to his uplifting adoption, how much love had stored up during the process of finding him, how ready I was to give him everything possible to have the best life, and I willing to do whatever it took to become his favorite, his mama.
Just the same as before, acclimation was an easy process, emitting the vibrant energies that shine from the feelings of true love -filling our home with appreciation, acceptance, and joy- conjoining Skyler into our unique family was a blessing beyond any of our expectations.
Skyler’s very presence seemed to make us all happier, healthier, and more complete. Beyond even our wildest dreams.
He quickly became best friends with anyone he met, reflecting the environment we nurtured him within. We soon came to notice that everything was easier with him than any other dog we knew before. It was abundantly clear, Skyler was the very best dog right from the start.
Typically, there are some frustrations, some issues that require attention and training, but not with Skyler. He learned a lot watching his brothers, almost never needing any instructions on how to behave. He never had an accident in the house even as a pup, never chewed anything he shouldn’t, never scratched himself or chewed his paws, never humped anything or scooted his bum, never came close to biting anything too hard-even through play, never begged for food or whined.. just literally never made any one of us upset nor required coaching towards his behaviors in any way, which was completely unique.
Calming his extreme excitement was literally the only thing we slightly revised. Sometimes he became so excited that he would jump super high over and over. It was so cute, cool and unique to see him bounce up into the air, his head much higher than ours, and come crashing down just to do it all over again, indicating his exuberant joy.
Skyler was incredibly smart and he learned so much at such a young age.
He was still a puppy when he taught himself how to open doors by standing on his hind legs, using his front paws to turn the handle. He mostly did this when I went outside and didn’t bring him. It was so cool! Until one day, I was injured and an ambulance was called. He opened the door to the garage and came out to find me, seeing police and ambulance people around me scared him, and once we made it past that event, we changed the door handles, making it impossible for him to open them at his discretion.
During the near decade of Skyler’s life with us, we went through many of life’s common struggles.
Side note; to date- my boyfriend (Steve) and I have been together almost 25 years and we each have our own medical complications, which can be difficult to contend with at times. Due to this and other factors, even though we have so much love to give, our dogs have become our children, filling that giant void in some loving ways.
There was once a time, while Skyler was still very young and Steve was in the hospital, I was suffering a lot of stress.
I cried alone in my chair as I watched my 3 boys play with their stuffed animals. I wondered to myself how they didn’t seem to notice my pain, and some dogs can easily sense these things.
In that very moment, as those thoughts came into my mind, something amazing happened.
Skyler instantly stopped playing with his brothers, looked over at me, then came over and jumped up on my lap to comfort me, kissing away my tears, filling me with his pure joy.
This hadn’t happened before that moment. I had picked him up, held and kissed him before, but this was different, this was a clear attempt at emotional support.
🤍My Sky🤍 lifted me up when I couldn’t reach, my light in the dark.
From that day forward, he was very in tune with my emotions, always listening intently to my voice, realizing my different emotions, trying to influence the best out of me.
I changed a lot for him.
I’ve always been a little like Eeyore, from a young age, living in a bit of sadness, gloom and underdeveloped emotions, always carrying around the heavy burden of unresolved conflicts and adversity.
Now that Skyler was so astute, I needed to become more careful, to facilitate the happy home I desired and promote the continued joy my Skyler radiated.
This dog taught me so much.
There’s no amount of reflection and description that can accurately depict the enhancements and benefits to our lives this special boy amounted to and how dramatically he elevated us in his short time here.
Any time I became angry with something, he would leave the room and go lay down in the bedroom. He was usually very focused on me and always near me, so when he did this, it alerted me to change my emotions and to soften those harsh feelings.
It was a good reminder that was ever present.
This helped me catch myself in those moments and eventually made me more in tune to my presentation of difficult emotions.
It’s a bit of a bazaar reality that’s abundantly accurate.
Not during every moment, but still significantly, he continued to be in tune with my feelings and emotions, sometimes even when they were merely thoughts in my head without presentation, almost providing a type of supernatural connection uncommonly experienced. These occurrence somewhat reminded me of the movie ET, where he and Eliot shared such a supernatural connection, a bond they both felt in their own bodies, a kind of shared existence between souls.
It had me thinking about emotional support dogs, epilepsy and medical dogs, police dogs, and the likes of those miracles we’re immensely fortunate to incorporate into our struggles.
Just a dog that is a normal dog, without all these impressive skills is one that deserves a special place in our hearts, but the super hero dogs are some of the most amazing gifts that we as humans have the ability to find endless value within.
Skyler was this miracle hero dog for me.
My most precious baby boy that could never do wrong.
I swear, everyone that met him could see his brilliance, love, and adorability, too.
I took to asking people if they could see it. I’m sure it may have sounded silly, some thinking it was the bias of his mama, but yet, they all stated they saw him as bright eyed, angelic, and loving.
In all fairness, they did see him with only their eye, whereas I saw him with every fiber of my being, with love radiated from my heart to his and back on an infinity loop.
Skyler was always looking for ways he could help out, and he was the best helper!
At some point, after a few vet visits, he began to think he was a Doctor.
Perhaps it was his white coat, perhaps his supernatural powers.
When Chase or Brick became unwell, he would care for them with me.
He followed them around more, checked on them, and began licking them in new ways -with a kind of ph testing quality where he’d bring his tongue out very slowly to an area and then bring it back slowly into his mouth, testing the sample on his tongue by opening and closing his mouth a few times, appearing to analyze its characteristics. He played more gently with them, snuggled them closer, and cloaked them in his heartwarming abundance of love and care.
When Chase passed close to his 10th birthday, Skyler remained so strong, comforting all of us through the loss.
He focused a lot of his time on Brick and his best little buddy, (an adorable Frenchton named) Archie, keeping their spirits up.
Whatever time was left he dedicated to Steve and I, giving us all the love we needed to get through.
He had such a glow in his eyes, such an energetic spirit, full of love and excitement, exuding joy.. he had a unique way of lightened our burdens just by being himself.
In the time we spent recovering from that loss, our bond had grown stronger and we held each other even closer than ever before.
Time continued to pass and things settled a bit as we eased into our smaller family, but things never stay that way forever; more challenging times were right around the corner.
Despite years of routine vet check-ups once or twice each month, Brick’s illness was advancing.
He had been on prednisone and antibiotics continuously for many years, as prescribed for his bacterial infections which caused open sores on his face and paws.
I followed every advice from our vet, unaware how dangerous those medications are to take routinely.
One bleak day, just weeks into the pandemic, Brick became seriously ill, bad enough to need veterinary care.
Everyone was led into a panic by our trusted authorities, and our initial responses to the viral threat left most people finding road blocks to getting any help from anyone for any reason.
Vet offices were closed at first and re-opened for emergency appointments only.
I made the first appointment I could.
Everything was so strange, someone came out to the parking lot to take Brick in, then they called me on my cell phone to discuss, and yep, prescribed more meds that I picked up at the window as they gave me back my dog.
I’m sure you could guess what happened, but I won’t let you, I’ll just tell you.
The meds didn’t help, not even a little and Brick got much worse very quickly.
There was nothing more they could offer.
More precisely- there was nothing realistic, healthy, cost-efficient, or practical they could offer.
Brick’s battle ended at 8.5 years old, after years of failing to find remedies for his condition.
I certainly felt the failure harshly, it was an unbelievable loss.
The pandemic response was to isolate everyone in their homes and here, not even 2 months in, we lost Brick and our house became even more quiet and lonely.
This was hard for us; Steve, Skyler and myself.
Now we were just the 3 of us in so many ways.
Unlike before, this time, Skyler was very affected.
But, so was the whole world at that time.
Everyone was feeling the chaos of COVID19, and the many losses we suffered during its early days, weeks, and months, turned all of our lives up-side-down on a dime.
Skyler instantly refused to eat dog food anymore from that day on.
When Chase lost Carter and became sick, he was diagnosed with pancreatitis and we had been instructed to feed him chicken and rice, so we figured we would try the same thing with Skyler. We began to make him home made people food to remedy his appetite, and moving forward, that’s what we did for the rest of his 4 and a half years with us.
We felt so blessed to have Skyler, especially since we had just lost Brick so soon and the pandemic was keeping people isolated, but he was already so special to us, now it was just more clear how great it was that we had gotten him when we did, so many years before we could have truly known how much we would end up needing him.
We were prepared to give him more our best- the best food, playtime, love, everything -and from that day forward, we almost never left him at home all alone.
We were also blessed to have his best friend Archie still coming over for visits.
Our bond with his little buddy became greater, too, always looking forward to his presence in our home. I know Skyler missed his brothers, but with the pandemic in full swing and the world of craziness that ensued, it didn’t seem like the right time to get a puppy.
More time passed, as it always does, and we adjusted into another new normal.
About a year later, Skyler began to suffer breathing difficulties during and following exercise.
Loud panting for long periods of time following minimal exercise.
He was always in excellent shape, always super muscular and not overweight, even with human foods -a very picky eater- usually choosing meat options and denying a French fry.
In taking him to the vet, he always received a clean bill of health, even with the new breathing issues. There wasn’t anything we could do but monitor his breathing and minimize long distance walks or any strenuous excitement. I began to research his symptoms.
Sadly, our Skyler continued to have these concerning breathing issues. We lessened his physical activity, and still each time we took him for walks or a ride in the car- panting loud for long periods, trying to achieve enough oxygen to get back to good, forced us to minimize these events, and of course, didn’t help his condition.
Yet again, we would have done ANYTHING to help him and yet again still, medicine had nothing to offer, nor any decent advice for us to accomplish naturally.
I took to researching online again, this time hoping more desperately.
Then it happened. Skyler was getting worse.
He had an infection on his cheek and we took him to the vet.
He was prescribed antibiotics for that and literally days later..
One side of his face had drooped and lost feeling.
He was presenting Bells Palsy, which is different in dogs than humans.
I had long since lost any faith in my vet’s office and the local vet hospital, feeling the many failures of our previous boxers, and Skyler was in no shape to travel, being off balance and having trouble taking in oxygen through his droopy face, so I began to look for holistic offices, finding only 2 in our area, and only one still in practice.
The front desk woman at the only holistic vet I could find was not nice at all.
She said the vet wasn’t accepting any new patients, and when I begged and offered to pay more, she argued and became irritated with my persistence.
I gave up after a few moments of trying only to call back a couple days later in another desperate attempt to get help for Skyler.
At that point I had given Skyler 6 days of antibiotics, the first time in his life receiving medication.
When I called the holistic office back, the nasty lady there told me that antibiotics are the worst idea due to his condition, basically saying that I was doing everything wrong by even going to a mainstream vet and that they didn’t want to get involved at this point, especially after the 6 days of antibiotics that he shouldn’t have been given.
Oh my friggin God!
Again, I begged and pleaded, but it was no use, we weren’t going to be seen or helped.
His facial paralysis lasted a little more than 3 months and was very distressing.
Saliva drooled constantly from one side of his mouth and it was harder for him to get enough air at times or get around normally, so we stopped all physical activity during these months, which set us all back even more.
We hand fed him every meal piece by piece, as he had a hard time moving his face to pick up food and chew it out of his bowl, and we were happy helping him, hoping we could get through this and back to better functioning.
I continued to research and incorporate new health promoting practices.
We began to make him beef roasts, wild caught salmon, and mixed turmeric and ginger root with virgin coconut oil and Manuka honey as a natural anti-inflammatory and antibiotic agent that we gave him as a medicine. He enjoyed all of this and it helped us through the months of his bells palsy.
We were all so relieved when his face began to have feeling again.
We watched as it tightened back up, twitching with the revival of feeling. But it tightened a little too much and now that side was a bit hyper-clenched compared to the other, still twitching intermittently.
We were super hopeful that we were finally on the road to recovery and that our methods of treatment were working to heal and strengthen his system.
He bounced back a bunch from our efforts and we began going on short walks again, still shortened due to his excessive panting and now, the lack of routine exercise.
We celebrated his 9th birthday and, knowing we would eventually run out time, we did everything we could to make that birthday the most special.
A few short months after that event, he began presenting all the common symptoms attributable to Cushing’s disease.
These symptoms and presentations came on so quickly;
Pot bellied appearance, skin lesions, increased thirst, an appetite for everything and always hungry - unlike any of his previous behaviors- and now, there was a look of fear in his eyes, a common symptom of the disease.
At this time, we hadn’t taken him to the vet in quite a while and didn’t want to if they couldn’t help, so again, I looked to the internet for help.
I’ve seen more devastation than relief in all my years of witnessing our medical systems attempt to practice their strategies on our sufferings, and the last thing I wanted was anything that could cause bad reactions.
In researching Cushing’s disease and veterinary procedures, I realized that this condition is just like many others - far out of the system’s wheelhouse as well.
All information dictates that they can do a number of tests to appropriately identify the label for his condition, which surely was Cushing’s - same as Brick in his last months of life, but this wouldn’t help at all in the end, the tests would put him through a lot and cost a ridiculous amount of money, just for a useless label.
They have a medication they can provide, but admit that it may not help and may have negative side effects. It wouldn’t remedy suffering or offer any benefit to longevity, so yet again, it’s a pointless waste of money, time and could turn out to be worse than not trying ‘medicine’.
We continued to research and increase natural treatments, hoping for a home remedy that could prove miraculous. We began to use CBD oil, which did help him with his anxiety and look of fear.
We thought we were making decent progress, and despite his terrible condition, some things seemed to be getting better, but then came the road block that led us to the end of our time with him.
Skyler had now developed Bell’s Palsy on the other side of his face, just a little more than a year after the previous one resolved.
For the rest of his days, he needed to be in front of a floor fan to assist with the breathing difficulties of the paralysis and the anxieties that produces.
This second facial paralysis was again, very hard for him, causing balance issues and only allowing him to lay straight down, no longer comfortable laying on his side.
Despite all this, we remained grateful for home remedies and believed in the possibility that we could get him through this and back to better days.
He still had so much life left in him.. you could see that. Please, God!
Despite the persistent muscle wasting of the Cushing’s he was still so strong and muscular.
He still wagged his baby tail very happily at the sight of company or while we engaged in communication about things he had interest in.
It seemed like no matter what we did or how hard we tried, he continued to deteriorate rapidly, eventually finding no comfortable position other than standing. Not sitting, no laying, only standing.
About a month and a half into his second bout of facial paralysis, after more than 2 full days of not being able to lay down- us staying up with him all night making sure he didn’t fall as he attempted to sleep while standing, his legs began to painfully swell and we knew we were not going to make it through this, the suffering had become too great.
We definitely weren’t ready, but it was clearly time to say goodbye to Skyler, our best boy ever.
We were emotionally devastated and physically sick, and our hearts were already broken just making the call to Peaceful Bridge to schedule the euthanasia in our home, we knew had run out of time, but wished we had more.
The receptionist there, Sydney, was compassionate, heartfelt and accommodating. She could feel our pain and she knows how hard these moments are, so she tried to make the call as pleasant as possible.
We were so blessed to find Dr Gilbert and grateful that she came to our home to help Skyler pass peacefully, surrounded by our love and care and her sincere kindness.
What she did was the most pleasant method of passing we had ever experienced in our previous few occasions of saying goodbye, and everything about her support was very heartfelt and as comforting as it could have been.
We are sincerely grateful for Dr Gilbert in those crucial moments of gently helping to end our pup’s suffering.
When she left with Skyler’s body, it was surreal.
I watched each movement in disbelief and denial that this was what was happening.
I had been responsible for and cared for that beautiful body through every aspect of his life and I didn’t feel ready to lose him.
Now, for the first time in all our years together, Steve and I were completely empty nested, without any dogs to hold during our grief. For the very first time in almost 25 years- we had no dog in our home.
We cried like babies, talked about ‘the end’ we just witnessed, reminisced about all the years we had with Skyler, and longed to be holding him, caring for him, and still praying for that miracle of healing to come..but it was over.
And we miss Skyler like crazy.
Later that day, even though we hadn’t eaten much or slept much in days, we felt no hunger and loathed the thought of the comfort of sleep. We knew we needed to eat, but we felt guilty eating food, and knew we needed rest, but every second, everything we did was a stark reminder of our loss, of how much we were missing Skyler.
The feelings during the silence and emptiness felt overwhelming.
The next day we tried to keep busy, doing household chores, attending to lists of things we needed to accomplish, cleaning and moving furniture.
It felt good to get things done, but we didn’t want to feel good, we just wanted to keep busy so we weren’t sitting around moping and crying. We wanted to make Skyler proud of how we were getting along, absolutely sure that’s how he would want things to be.
He cared so much for his mommy and daddy, always lifting our spirits, trying to make us happy. We were blessed to be loved by Skyler.
This loss was different than the others.
Skyler was more special than others.
He had developed my awareness of my practices during emotional upset over many years of distress, so I wanted to implement the lessons he taught me and I began to think of productive ways to grieve.
I thought of others and some of the struggles people face.
Everyone has to find ways of living their lives after loss.
I reached out to people I hadn’t spoken to in a while, sharing about our loss and inquiring into their lives.
I was met with good conversation, great support, and uplifting encouragement from family and friends, each one understanding the gravity of loss, even for a family pet, and many shared their own experiences and similar situations.
So many people I know are struggling with their health without great resolve from medicine.
So many people I know have sick dogs on lots of meds with continued illness despite meds.
It’s truly scary how our food and medicine appears to fall short of helping us become healthy.
I know a lot of people struggle and it mostly appears to be due to corruption of our systems.
I pray to God we can sort out all these misfortunes, but looking back in history, where we’re at today, and the plans for our future, it doesn’t look like it’ll be promoted in our lifetimes. I’ll still dream, hope and pray for it to come.
Either way, the connections embraced during those calls felt necessary and certainly like the right thing to do in these times of grief.
I had never done that before, but thanks to Skyler’s influence, I turned to that better practice and it helped soothe my emotions, as well as the emotions of those reached towards.
I don’t want to forget any of this.
Memory is some of the most precious gift we can own.
Without memory, we suffer even more, losing our ability to learn from the past.
I sometimes suffer from a little bit of a poor memory at times, especially depending on my stress levels and sleep functions.
Some of the people I love most dearly have lost a lot of their memory and it’s very painful to witness.
In large part I wrote this for myself, to record these events and have this to look back on in my future. I don’t want to forget anything. I want to remember it all.
And I also want to make myself and Skyler a fresh promise.
A promise built upon the strength, love, and the awareness Skyler enriched my life with.
Sometimes when your special hero has passed on, you need to rise up as your own hero, carrying on the wisdom and lessons learned from that gift.
I promise I won’t let all of his many years of honorable efforts to change me into a better person die off with his passing.
I promise to carry every lesson he’s taught me throughout what’s left of my life as close to my heart as possible, as if he were still watching me.
I promise to remember my Best Boy Ever, Skyler Judas forever.
I told Skyler he was going to Heaven to be with his brothers.
I told him I would see him again some day.
I told him his mommy and daddy would be okay.
I keep my promises.
“No longer by our side, but forever in our hearts.”
