dogs

Another Goodbye is Upon Us

Someone said to me today that pre-grieving is as hard as the grieving can be. While I had never heard the phrase “pre-grieving” it certainly fit. Knowing what’s coming, agonizing on if you are making the right decision, if the time is right, knowing how much it’s going to hurt…it all sucks.

The time has come that we have to say goodbye to Hope. Tomorrow we’ll take her to the vet and send her home to God where she won’t be in pain anymore. While I know she has quite the host of angels waiting to receive her my heart is still breaking.

Hope is the youngest of our babies. If I really dwell on the unfairness of it all that’s the thing that hits me the most. We have three senior citizen dogs and our youngest girl got aggressive non-treatable cancer. Like WTF.

From the day we got her Hope’s role has fit her name. She gave us hope. She came into our life to fill the hole left when we lost Tigre. The kids wouldn’t let me name her Faith or Love from 1 Corinthians 13:13: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” So I named her Hope.

She has always had human tendencies. She has never been one for just a belly rub. She has to hug you. Both arms around your neck hug you before she is content. She sits up in “her” chair on her butt like a human. She has never ever realized her own size…she’ll crawl into your lap like she is a five pound chihuahua instead of an eighty pound overgrown love mutt. She’ll sneak under the covers in bed with you at night and curl up oh so tight only to run you off the bed spread across half of it in the middle of the night – running in her sleep no less.

I read something recently speculating on what a dogs’ purpose is on this earth. It is to remind us humans that love is supposed to be easy. Unconditional, all consuming, and with the unadulterated joy that comes to a dog when we walk through the door. It’s us humans that make it hard. Dogs like Hope are especially good at their job. All she ever needed was a piece of human food snuck under the table (cherry tomatoes are her favorite!), a hug, a lap to sleep in, or a car ride with her ears flapping and her tongue wagging. Or to wrestle with her sister over who got to get to me first when I walked in the door.

So how do you say goodbye? How do you look into those big brown eyes and tell her it’s ok to let go? That you’ll be ok even when at that moment you aren’t sure you will be? That’s how I will love her the way she has always loved me. Selflessly and deeply. I don’t want her to hurt anymore. I want her to run and roll and play and feel no pain. My heart will carry her with me for the rest of my days. I’ll console her sisters for many many weeks to come – especially Lilah. I’ll bury my face in her blanket and seek comfort from her smell until it fades.

I believe in heaven and I believe with all my heart that the angels who sent her to heal my broken heart after Tigre left us are making ready her place with them. I believe she’ll be free of pain. I am deeply grateful that God made the pieces fall in place on our move to allow her final days to be spent someplace where she had a yard to run and play in and be a dog instead of the way she’s had to live the last four years in the backyard at the other house. I’m grateful for these last core memories of her. More than I can even put into words.

So I’ll sign off now and soak up these last hours of Hope snuggles. Thanks for indulging my rambling. And go grab and extra hug from your own babies for me. Life is precious and it goes too damn fast.

Blessings – Amy

Grieving Again…

Y’all know my journey. It took me YEARS to learn how to not stuff grief on a shelf in a box and ignore it pretending it wasn’t affecting everything in my world. As I stood in my kitchen last night sobbing uncontrollably in my husband’s arms about how I would give up everything – new house, traveling, everything – just to have more time with Hope I realized that messy journey of grief has started again. I was gobsmacked anew with the reminder that grief isn’t a process that is just for when someone is gone. Sometimes it starts when you know the goodbye is coming.

My children would tell you at some point or another in their childhood that I loved the dogs more than them. While that isn’t true what I love most about my dogs, and why I will ALWAYS have dogs, is the way they love you unconditionally. Unequivocally. Even on your worst day when you yell at them to get off the couch or out from under your feet. They tuck their tail and run to the next room and come back again five minutes later with their tails wagging and their heart in their eyes. Dear God if only humans could love each other that way!

What is special about Hope is she is the type of dog that they make movies about. She never met a stranger. When I bring her to the office she greets everyone with a tail wag and a head dunk for an ear scratch. When the news got out last week about her diagnosis I got a range of reactions from hugs to “please bring her to visit one more time” to “please don’t bring her because I can’t cry at work”. She is just a special dog and not in the “special” crazy way that my sweet Lilah is.

I’ll be transparently honest. I am struggling with mama guilt with Hope. She has been really clingy for about six months. Looking back through pictures with the knowledge I have now I can see the tumor growing. I am beating myself up that I missed it. That with the clinging that was uncustomary for her she was trying to tell me something and I missed it. I feel terribly guilty about this trip we leave on tomorrow and the massive change that is coming to our world with this move. Is it fair to her to turn her world upside down right now? Do you have any idea what that is doing to my heart?

I lay awake with her at night as she wraps her arms around my neck and I just hold her. Soaking up each extra minute. Praying that a miracle will happen and this ugly nasty tumor will just evaporate. Smelling the rot coming from in her mouth and knowing she surely must be miserable. Waking up when she is in her bed and checking to make sure she is breathing just to reassure myself. Feeling selfish for keeping her on this earth even one extra minute. Unable to let her go. Wanting my kids to have more time to say their goodbyes. Having my head feel like a ping pong ball and not being able to get it to stop. Wanting to scream how unfair it is for cancer to happen to such a sweet gentle young dog. I have THREE senior citizen dogs that we’ve been braced for a while to have to deal with losing and this has struck our second youngest baby.

There are some who opt not to have pets just because of this stage. The love they give is worth the pain but dear God it hurts. It hurts so bad.

Pray for my Hope. She literally gave the kids and I hope when we had none.

Blessings y’all – Amy

And Two More Makes….SIX?!?

Y’all know me. If it has four legs and wags it’s tail at me I melt like butter on a Texas sidewalk in July. Since the addition of Lilah after Fred died my pack has always been comprised of four monsters….I mean dogs. They rule my heart and my home.

With Tim spending more and more time at the house we’ve introduced his pack to mine. His babies are just as spoiled as mine are. True dog lovers treat their dogs as their kids and the line between four legged and human kid can be kind of blurry….

Not the best pic but all six in one shot is hard!

Guys – four dogs I have mastered. We have a routine. They know where the line is on my sanity and when not to cross it. We know each other’s routines and moods. We know bed time and chill time and get the heck out from under my feet time.

Add two more to that and chaos ensues.

It’s not all bad. The first week was a little rough. No one, and I mean no one, knew where they belonged in the house. Not even me – and it was my house lol. The second week of six was amazingly much better. Poor Tim works from home so he deals with the monsters more than I do…and they play him like daughters doing doe eyes at dad…but we’re getting a routine. Everyone is finally getting some sleep. Which helps tempers and destructive tendencies. (More than a few toys have lost their lives the last two weeks though.) If anyone has a recommendation on TRULY indestructible dog toys please let me know!

We love each of them for their quirks and personalities. We are blessed that the blending of that many of them has gone as well as it has…it could have been a disaster. We are both animal people and I never thought there was a limit on the amount of animals a home could hold.

There is. That number is…SIX. 😂

How many furry friends make up your pack?

Blessings y’all – Amy