Me, to my 16-year-old daughter, broken hearted after the end of a friendship:
Sweetheart, I’m so sorry you’re hurting. What do you think would make it better?
I expected to hear “cookies,” or “a sweet tea from McAllister’s,” or even “a new top.” Instead she said,
A puppy.
I said, “Of course you can have a puppy.”
Seemingly in the next minute, she said, “I’ve found the puppy.”
On the way home from the adoption, head in Sara Ann’s lap
So we drove to Southaven, Mississippi, from our home in Germantown, a suburb of Memphis, Tennessee. A local shelter had pets for adoption at a Petco store there, and we saw the adorable Beagle-German Shepherd mix she had seen online. They had named him Nicolas. She took to him immediately and we walked out of the store with a new puppy that she promptly renamed Charlie.
Sara Ann with Charlie, shortly after we adopted him
Charlie was smart. He was easily trained and was a great pet from the start. More than any other dog we’d ever had, he loved being with us and wanted to be around us all the time.
Smart boy always rooted for the right team
He was sweet and gentle, despite the fact that he could growl like a German Shepherd. He looked like a full-blooded German Shepherd with short legs, and sometimes he squeaked like a Beagle when he didn’t get what he wanted.
At the lake with Charlie in 2008
He grew to be a wonderful watchdog, who protected our home from many scary, nefarious mothers with babies in strollers who walked by our house. 😉
Once we found him curled up in this laundry basket in the the laundry room. We started leaving it empty and he’d crawl in it when he wanted to chill and nap.
He loved being outside, at least as long as we were out with him. We spent many evenings on our patio in Germantown, relaxing while he ran around the yard and barked at squirrels.
We loved the way his tail curled up when he was happy. Sadly, it had been quite some time since his tail had curled that way.
Every night at bedtime he jumped up on our bed and slept at our feet the whole night. When the time came that he couldn’t jump up anymore, Jim would lift him onto the bed. Then he started sleeping on the floor next to our bed. But always there with us.
Charlie weathered our move to Jonesboro quite well and soon grew to love his new back yard. He liked to relax with us on the deck and bark at the dog next door. We knew when he could no longer go up and down the stairs to the deck that his time was coming soon.
Today, we sat with him, talked to him, reminisced, and reminded him of our love for him as he finally rested calmly and breathed his last.
I’ll miss him in the den while we watch TV and in our room at night as we sleep. He was a friend, a companion, protector, and a dear fur baby.
In happier days — she loved playing with this foam football. She’d bring it to us over and over until we got tired of throwing.
One of the worst things about being a grownup is having to do hard things.
With “little sister” Gracie napping on her back. I think she liked it.
We did one of those things today. Our beloved 14-year-old yellow Lab, Molly, had to be put to sleep. She has been part of our family, a loving and dear pet, since about 2000. Both girls grew up with her and remember her as a bouncy puppy. Watching her, knowing the pain she was in was heartbreaking for all of us.
We knew it was the right time, but it was a mere eight months ago we lost our sweet Gracie. And, even though we remain positive, with Jim still in job transition, it was almost too much for us to handle.
I struggled with guilt; I would look in her eyes, so trusting, and wonder if she knew what we were about to do. But thinking of her suffering was the difference. You cannot love someone — even a dog — and want them to suffer. And to allow her to continue in a life with no quality would have been cruel.
Both of the girls came over and said “Goodbye” to her, with hugs and tears and memories as they saw her for the last time.
A couple of weeks ago, we were at my sister’s house in Arkansas. Sitting in her pool, she mentioned Molly’s condition. While we knew that it was inevitable, sometimes you just know the limits of what you can bear and I told her so.
So Sara, my sister, offered to take care of it for us, to actually take her to the vet. That was today.
I’ll miss seeing her, even if the last few weeks, she’s mostly laid on a towel on the kitchen floor. I’ll miss watching her chase and retrieve the foam football and bring it back to us to do it all over again. She was calm and quiet and a sweet presence.
It’s not easy to get a photo of four dogs together. You can barely see Charlie behind the patio chair, but I promise he’s there.
This week has been extra hard; knowing what was to happen, anticipating the loss, all the while knowing it was necessary. Even knowing something is the right thing, that it’s best doesn’t make it easier to bear.
Real love is doing what’s best for someone else even when it hurts. Even when it puts you on the verge of tears and makes you pretty much cognitively impaired for the better part of two weeks.
Jim with Charlie (left) and Molly at the lake house in the summer of 2010
Several days ago, a pastor friend of mine reminded me there is theological support for the fact that we’ll see our pets in Heaven. I find it comforting that I’ll see her again, and when I do, Gracie will probably be napping on her back.
Rest in peace, sweet girl. You were loved, you were cherished and you are missed.
If we’re connected on any social network, you know by now that we lost one of our four dogs on Christmas Day. We’re not really sure what happened, but the best guess is that she had an illness we didn’t know about and just found a place in my mom’s back yard to curl up and die. We found her on Christmas morning, after combing the neighborhood for hours on Christmas Eve, thinking she had simply gotten out of the yard.
She was a tiny teacup chihuahua that we discovered at a gas station in Bald Knob, Arkansas in the summer of 2009. On our way home from a lake trip, we stopped for gas. The moment Sara Ann got out of the car, she spied a woman and her daughter with six small puppies in a laundry basket. They were giving them away free. Jim saw them at about the same time and called out to Sara Ann, “Don’t look at the puppies … ” But it was too late.
Bringing her home from the Bald Knob gas station
It was hard to imagine how tiny she was when she first came to us. At her first vet visit, she weighted .8 lbs.
In Sara Ann’s shoe boxSara Ann loved her dearly, as we all did.
She loved to curl up in our laundry room, in this laundry basket that had a cozy blanket in it. It took her a few months to be able to get in and out of the basket, but she finally figured out to do it.
Here she is napping on Ethan’s lap with her sister Layla in my mom’s office
I’ll never forget the way she wanted to be held, with her head in the crook of my arm and my hand cradling her tiny butt. She’d lie still forever in that position, as if she could stay there forever. When I worked in my home office, she’d sit on my legs and curl up between my legs and the desk. We would laugh at the way she ran on those tiny legs, more like a rabbit hop than a running dog, and how she would bark just like the big dogs at anyone who entered our house. We always thought she fancied herself a terrifying watchdog.
She was not terribly well-behaved or well-trained; she didn’t come when we called her unless she felt like it, and never really got the hang of doing her doggy business outdoors. She was so tiny and cute it didn’t matter much, so we let her slide. I’d like to think that we gave her a life filled with love and comfort and that she died knowing how dear she was to all of us.
It’s been a long time since I’ve lost a pet, and it’s already been harder than I remember. I’ll never forget the look of utter devastation on Sara Ann’s face when she found Gracie in the yard. Seeing a child in pain will wrench a mother’s gut. I held her as she sobbed and I watched as Elizabeth and Jim rushed to comfort her.
I believe God always sends us a ray of beauty in the midst of pain. Elizabeth and Jim gathered Gracie up, wrapped her and placed her in a box and we buried her near where we found her in my mom’s yard. Though it was freezing cold, we all stood by while Jim dug a grave for her and lowered her into the ground. We held and comforted one another as a family and, though it’s hard for her to tolerate the cold at 77, my mom stood with us the entire time.
The outpouring of love and support we’ve all received on our social networks has been a comfort and solace to us on a day that should have been filled with laughter, joy and celebration. In a sense, it was. I think Sara Ann summed it all up well with these two tweets.
Still shocked & broken hearted over the loss of my most favorite two pound pup. Miss her like crazy already. pic.twitter.com/mnf5Z7bL
