Originally Posted by ThePhanastasio

Baby sister (now 15) has suffered her first heartache. The guy she was with was a sweet boy, intelligent...but she kept ignoring my suggestions that she was acting boring and distant, and would be dealt the friend card in a hurry. Of course, it happened. I'm not going to say I told her so, because that's not cool and she's all bummed out and blaring Christina Perri.

Unfortunately, along with the friend card being dealt, our Bassett Hound passed today. I'm distraught, because we've had her since I was in eighth grade. But she...Hannah was all of three when we got Maggie, so she has known her, essentially, her whole life. For a Bassett, Maggie lived a fairly long life; she was at least three when we got her in 2001...but the poor kid says this is the worst day in her life. Melodramatic, yes. But she's a kid, and she is just learning to deal with more adult sadness. I don't want to lie and tell her this is rare, but I don't want the kid being depressed.

During the durecho last year, she and I were inside a mobile home. I thought it was a tornado, and was pretty sure we were going to die, to be quite honest...but I spent my time calming her down, lying and saying there had been much worse storms, and that we just had to stay in the bathroom because we didn't want to get cut with glass.

I just want to make the poor kid feel better about everything going on.