It seems cruel to be writing about loss again so soon. But this week we said goodbye to our oldest dog, Gus Gus, after a short fight against cancer.

Gus Gus was only 7 years old, and that only sharpens the pain of what seems to be our family’s neverending season of grief.

However, if you would have known Gus Gus, dwelling only on his loss would be a disservice to his memory and a taint on his legacy of unconditional love he taught us.

Gus Gus — or G-Town, or Big Swagger, or Gussy GooGoo Puppy PooPoo, as his mom liked to refer to him — came to us in a big ol’ package of gangly legs, a large rumpus and an infectious smile! … A silly, tongue-hanging-out grin that earned him a legion of admirers!

The simple truth is that Gus was the kind of dog very few of us humans deserve.

He craved attention, but never felt stilted when you were too busy to pet him. He lived for his nightly walks, but he possessed the ability to know when dad was too overwhelmed to fit the walk in. And he would hang around forever for one tiny morsel that his mom would sneakily toss him, but he wasn’t angry if it didn’t come.

Having come into our home when three of our kids were still at home, they were the center of his world. And poor Gus had to live through watching two of those kids move out and the third become a senior and have less time for him. … Oh, but in those brief moments when one of the kids would return, Gus lit up the room because he was so ecstatic to see them!

Gus Gus taught me a lifetime of lessons in his short six and a half years with us. And processing him being gone so soon is going to take a while.

But I do believe that the Holy Spirit walks alongside us during even our darkest hours, and because of that I received a gift at just the right time.

Through serendipity (or maybe not!) I was recently introduced to artist Phillip Bowen who captured what I’ve been feeling this week in a song lyric that says: “When a life’s so short the dying never ends.”

It would be easy for such a line to lead us further into grief, but for me it’s a reminder that this life we have is fragile and all too short.

And we can either succumb to the siren song of numbness that loss can bring, thereby cheapening all that Gus lived for.

Or we can learn from the Gus Guses who come into our lives and show us the beauty of this world’s fragility. … I pray that with God’s grace that I continue to learn to choose the latter.

Long live Gus Gus’ legacy. Amen.

Devlyn Brooks is the CEO of Churches United in Moorhead, Minn., and an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America serving Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. He blogs about faith at findingfaithin.com, and can be reached at devlynbrooks@gmail.com.