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Shelby, my baby, it’s been a while since I’ve updated your blog. You are in my heart and my thoughts every single day. I hope you know that. I hope you can hear me talking about you and talking TO you. Yet, probably in true “Shelby fashion” you are doing your best to ignore my constant chatter.

I never realized how much I talked to you or about you until you were gone. I was scrolling through my FB page from last year and I came upon this photo and the caption with it:

It was just a couple weeks later our world was rocked with your spleen removal and hemangiosarcoma diagnosis. I am dreading reliving that part of our life from last year as I know those memories are etched in my mind. I want/try to focus on all the good times we had but sometimes it’s just really hard.

Memories from last summer … 

Last summer, since I wasn’t working, we made Thursday into “Vodka Thursdays”. I should have trademarked it. We would go to the Beachside Inn, walk along the water a bit and then grab some happy hour cocktails on the deck and watch the sun set. It was the best!  Shelby was the perfect drinking companion, super chillax and friendly to every one. For a dog that hated the water, you should found your sea legs in the calm currents of the ocean. And of course, it was the one time I had taken the towels out of my car!

We also went to explore the botanical gardens at UCLA. Since Shelby couldn’t hike or go as far, this was something fun for us to do. Shelby loved to be out in nature; she loved to sit outside, bask in the sun, smell the random smells of the animals, watch the turtles.

And of course, most of our weekends included sitting outside like this.  It was perfect. I would have done my long run and just wanted to chill and Shelby couldn’t go far on her walks but wanted to be outside. I remember when we lived in the valley we had a balcony that overlooked the parking lot. Literally, all you could see were driveways and garbage bins but Shelby loved to sit outside in the sun and watch the world go by. That was my only complaint about our new home – no balcony. But we would happily sit in the middle of the sidewalk for hours while she could watch people, dogs, cats pass by and I could work on my tan and rest my legs.

Without even realizing it, last summer was our last summer. I think, perhaps, on some level I did know that. I knew there was something wrong with that leg and that despite us not knowing, eventually it was going to come out. My not having a job was a true blessing in disguise. I got to spend every waking minute with my best girl. Neither of us could have asked for a better way to spend our time. Our bond grew even stronger (if that was even possible). Every day was something new. I would work for hours in the a.m. doing job search stuff, etc and then in the afternoon, we would play. We would nap, we would sit outside, we would go for cocktails! Pretty much what we would do during every other summer (yet mostly one the weekends). With Shelby, everything was an experience, a gift, a treasure. People told me to make the most of last summer and I really did try. I have some regrets – partly my own subconscious that held me back – but for the most part, I kept true to my promise to Shelby – to make her life extraordinary. Looking back on my posts from last summer, we did have a lot of cautious fun! Yet, Shelby and I were so in-sync, I am sure she felt my stress, felt my concern about her health, felt my anxiety.

But as this summer winds down, and I’ve made some new happy memories, I definitely do feel the spirit of Shelby guiding me to new memories and trying to keep the dark spots of last summer out of my conscious. I knew this would be a hard summer and the next several months as I relive the darkest time in our fight but I have to stay and remain #shelbystrong and remember that my strength comes from Shelby and her spirit that lives on in me. I love you Shelby Lynne … I love you more than words can ever say. My heart is still 100% yours and I miss you each and every day and while I cry a little less, I still have days when I am not as brave. But I think of how brave you were – always were – and my spirit is lifted! Thank you, Shelby, for making summer 2013 one filled with great joy and love!

Oh Shelby … it all makes so much sense now. I have been feeling off and lethargic and tired for a couple days now. Combined with my epic tears (albeit Oscar worthy performance this past weekend), today crept up on me.

Sixteen weeks ago today I helped your earn your beautiful wings and you assumed a new role – my guardian angel. I miss you so very much, my princess. I have found myself staring at your photos more and more lately. Trying to look into your eyes. Such love we had for each other.

I also noticed that Friday, when I worked from home, I went to the gym first and didn’t shower right away. Because I had been working out, I wasn’t wearing your necklace that I got to always hold you in my heart. I feel naked without it. The Tripawds Etsy store did such an amazing job and it’s beautiful and it holds me close to you.

I’ve heard you’ve been visiting with my friend, Bonnie. I hope you are being a good guest as you are leaving a trail of rhinestones all over the place. I am glad you are making friends.

I have visions, thoughts, dreams of what you are doing over the bridge. I know you have met up with all the angels of the friends I have here, Polly, Ty, Happy Hannah, Sassy, Brendol, Jake, Jersey Girl, Snoops (who just got there so show him the ropes) and of course, Jerry. I think you are probably the smallest one out of this group but your personality is as big as they are in size. I am sure they all love you but have schooled you more than once about the jumping and play-nipping! You always did love the bigger dogs! 🙂

When I close my eyes … sometimes I can see you playing with all your friends. I know you can see me and you don’t want me to be sad. I know you send me as much strength as you can. I know you sent me little Jasper Lily. She’s your baby sister. We talk about you every day. Do you hear us?  If you could send her a message about being a little less scared of EVERYTHING, that would be fantastic! You were my fearless girl.

I have your photos on my desk at work still. I love looking into your pretty face from our trip to Santa Barbara. We had so many wonderful adventures.

I have the big sequin I found in my office right after you passed sitting on my desk. I have the pennies you have sent near your little shrine.

I miss you Shelby. I know I will see you again. I think that is what gives me peace and keeps me going. But today, and this week, I am exhausted and I am sad and I feel worn out. I know that is the grief. It’s hard to believe last summer at this time we were chillaxin’ by the beach.

I have figured out a new way to sign my name on the Tripawds forums which really expresses what I believe to be true.  “Alison with the Spirit of Shelby fur-ever in her heart” because I believe you are with me in my heart, my soul, my daily life … there is a piece of you that lives on in me. You were my soul mate. My one true love. And a love like that never, ever, EVER leaves.

Mommy loves you, Shelby Lynne… to the moon and back and for all infinity.

Oh Miss Shelby… God how I miss you. And just when I thought the daily tears had stopped, I find myself sobbing at my computer. I am working at home today and put on my iTunes library at ‘random’. An Enya song came on. It brought me right back to those first few days after your amputation. You were beyond manic. I couldn’t soothe you – no matter what I did. You just paced and paced. It broke my heart. I was exhausted; up all night with you, knowing it was the drugs that was doing this but hopeful they ease out of your system.  I needed sleep – desperately – to be a better caregiver for you. I was a single mom.

So I shut you out my room and cranked up Enya to calm and soothe you. I knew you wouldn’t hurt yourself and I just prayed you would settle and get some rest. I felt like the world’s worst mom. What kind of mom shuts her baby – who is scared – out of her room? But I knew I couldn’t help you. No matter if I sat on the floor with you or paced with you.

You rested. You found your respite in my bathroom which you made your den.

My baby girl – my one true love – I miss you so very much. It is summer here. It was our time. Beach time. Cocktail time. Travel time. I only wish I had discovered how much fun traveling was together earlier in our life together. However, you most likely would have been the most mega PITA on the face of the earth! 🙂 I long to snuggle your ears one more time. Breathe in your fur. Kiss your face over and over. I hope you know how much I miss you. How much I think about you every day. How much I love you. There will NEVER be another love like ours. I truly believe that.

Thank you for the penny last weekend. And the sequin. I know it was your way of telling me you were and always here with me. I hope that this pain eases up. It’s almost been 4 months … how is that possible? It feels like you have been gone so much longer. I find it harder to recall our wonderful life together and those memories. thank GOD for Facebook so I can see how happy and how much fun we had last summer before we knew for sure about that awful f’ing cancer. I am thankful that God gave us last summer. I am thankful we didn’t know.  Because look how much fun we had!!!

I love you, Shelby, to the moon and back and for all infinity.

Oh my sweet angel, how much do I miss you!?!? I cannot believe we just passed the three month mark (7.8.14) of when you earned your wings. It brings me comfort and peace to think that you are terrorizing other pooches over the rainbow bridge. That you are running and jumping with the best of them and having a blast! That your spirit lives on in my heart daily. I feel you sending me strength. I feel you in my heart. You are the love of my life and I think about you and miss you daily. I stare at your photos all the time. Your scent has left the apt since we got new floors and the carpet is gone. But I think I found some of your fur the other day. It made me smile. I saw a car yesterday on my drive home from Tennessee. It was from “Shelby” county (as noted on the plate). Was that the sign I have been looking for from you?

I posted this on Facebook the other day. Everyone misses you so much.  You were so very much loved that sometime I think we forget all the quirky and perhaps ‘challenging’ things you would do.

Remember the many conversations we had about ‘boundaries’? Somewhere along the line, our relationship became blurry and you thought that my food was your food. I could leave a plate of food on the coffee table and you wouldn’t touch it but somehow, you never quite grasped not getting into the trash can. Oh how I do not miss coming home from work and seeing coffee grounds all over my floor as you went into the trash for a taste of deli meat on an old wrapper. And I do not believe for once second you didn’t know that was wrong. You could remember what time dinner was, where the cookies were stashed but you couldn’t remember “don’t eat out of the trash”?!? Oh Shelby Lynne… you gave me a run for my money for sure!

Or when I was rushing out that one time for TRX and I had a piece of string cheese in my mouth and I leaned over to put your leash on you and you grabbed the string cheese out of my mouth. Kind of like the Italian restaurant scene from “Lady and The Tramp”. Boundaries! We shared food, we shared ice-cream, we even shared wine (once or twice and only a splash). Your mouth was never dirty to me yet I never liked you to kiss me on the mouth! And you knew that – somehow. You knew that I didn’t like to be licked on the face but you would do it to others without even thinking about it.

Shelby … we were SO bonded. We were kindred spirits. You “got” me. And I “got” you. Part of the beauty of knowing you SO well was that I knew when you weren’t feeling well. I knew you inside and out and I was able to fight so hard for you. I have no regrets. We fought with every fiber of our being and we won. You may have lost your life but you never stopped living in the process. I am forever grateful for the 10 months we had . They will never be enough but your story was so much more than that. And even though I can’t remember the little day to day things we did that made us – “us” – I remember that you were the best part of my morning, the best part of my evening and the best part of my life. So until we meet again my sweet angel … run free, play hard and don’t forget to keep sending me signs! I love you to the moon and back and for all infinity!

Three months ago you earned your wings. And not a day goes by that I don’t miss you, think about you, long to feel your fur between my fingers one more time, to give you kisses, snuggles, hugs. You knew me. You “got” me. You were my best friend, my best girl, my soul mate.

It feels longer than three months since you left this earth. Longer since I laid you to rest in my arms by the beach and kissed you and told you that I would never leave you and that I loved you for all eternity.

Last weekend I participated in my annual YAS Spin-a-thon for cancer. This year the ride was dedicated to you. I rode with your bandanna on my arm and your name etched on my arm. I rode with you by my side and in my heart. People asked me “who is Shelby”, thinking it was a person. When I told them Shelby was my dog who had passed from cancer and thanks to advances in cancer therapies for humans, we were able to treat you as well.

Our apt flooded this week. The carpets were ruined. I guess it was a good thing that I had been dragging my feet in getting the carpets cleaned from your last few months there where you had been sick and had a few accidents. You know I was never mad because I knew how devastated you were when you messed on the carpet. We have laminate hardwood floors now. Like we did in Seattle (yet those were real hardwood). I remember you would slide across them like it was a game! The poor man that lived below us. Clickity click with your little nails!

It’s been a stressful couple of weeks. I have felt your strength, Shelby. I truly feel your spirit guiding me daily. I still feel tremendous sadness and grief. I worry that I talk to you less. I worry that your memory is becoming more distant. I worry that my focus is being re-directed. I worry that you think that I will forget about you – which how is that possible, my apt is still a shrine to you. I found your Christmas photo box this week when I was cleaning. I can’t bear to look at those photos yet.

It’s odd – I miss the gut-wrenching, heart-throbbing pain that I felt those first few weeks. I miss the hysterical tears. I fear that if I don’t grieve as intently, then it wasn’t real and our love wasn’t as strong as I believed it to be. People tell me that they miss you. That is good to hear. They can’t even imagine how much I miss you.

I love you, Shelby Lynne … always and forever. You will always be the most beautiful dog in the world with the best smile (I never realized how much you smiled until you were gone) and the best disposition. Thank you for keeping me safe. Thank you for watching out for me. Send me some pennies. Let me know you are still with me.  Because last weekend, you were most definitely with me. Till we meet again, my love …

Coming off two incredibly difficult weeks at work, I am hyper-sensitive and acutely aware of how much I depended on Shelby to comfort me through every challenging aspect of my life. Last week, the school in which I work at, had three 8th grade girls get hit by a car that ran a red light and threw them feet into the air. As administrative staff, we rushed to comfort the other children that witnessed it and help get the parents to their kids. In the week that followed, there was a lot of unknown, including the condition of one of the girls who was struck. Our community came together to support one and other but it was always hard to come home to an empty house.

This past Monday, our school was placed on lock-down for 5 hours due to a crazed gunman on a rooftop right on the opposite side of the street. Once again, our strength as a community was tested as we watched our block fill with swat teams, the bomb squad, the press, the police. Never have I seen so many guns drawn since I was in Boston in 2013 for the Marathon when the bombs went off at the finish line. As I escorted the children to the nearby park where they were reunited with their parents, I was forced to be strong for the little ones who were having to walk past men and women with rifles and bullet proof vests. I came home that night, exhausted.

When I returned to my hotel after the Boston bombings, my phone was filled with messages and texts but the one that stuck out was from the vet … Shelby’s home away from home. They had called to let me know that Shelby was quite fine but was very concerned about her mama. I broke down in tears. Shelby, of course, being a canine, had no clue what had happened but it was a real fear of mine that what would happen to Shelby, God forbid something happen to me. Never have I been so glad to get my girl out of ‘jail’.

Shelby was always my amazing source of comfort, through a break-up, through tough anniversaries (like the date of the passing of my father), from a bad day at work to a horrible run – that girl was always eager to greet me with a smile, with a snuggle, with a kiss. Even though Shelby knew that I wasn’t a big fan of on the face / mouth kisses, she would give kisses to my hands, arms, to let me know that she was there for me. Sometimes, if the days were bad and I was feeling emotional and I would try and hide it from Shelby, and she would always figure it out. And she would get up from wherever she was and she would come to me and love on me. Shelby slept with me in the bed most nights (before her injuries) and I could always count on her to lay right next to me on the nights I needed it the most.

I remember when her leg broke, her vet said, over and over – we’ll fix this. We will make this right. You were in Boston. You don’t deserve any more bad luck.

But it wasn’t me. It was Shelby and I had to comfort her. And I did. Till the very last breath and I have no regrets about that.

But my girl – oh how I miss your snuggles. Oh how I miss being able to tell you about my day. How crappy it was. How great it was. From the second I woke up in the morning, we would talk. I would always tell you good morning and that I loved you.  As I would leave for work and you would be settling in for your day, I would tell you to have a good day and that I loved you. When I got home from work, I would ask you about your day and what you did (even though I am pretty sure you checked out the kitchen for food that wasn’t there and slept on the couch all day). You were always SO happy when I got home. I miss our evening routine….I would get home, perhaps find you in your bed (or at the door with your tail wagging). But if you were in your bed, I would drop my stuff and come and get on the floor next to you or if you were in my bed, cuddle up with you there. I would give you kisses and you would make the cutest little moaning sounds …I guess it was your version of purring. We would get up and the swirling tail dance would begin. We would go for our walk, come home and you always thought it was dinner time! You were so food motivated!

Daylight savings was the worst – it somehow adjusted your internal dinner alarm clock earlier – always. I don’t know why, looking back on it, I decided that 6:00 p.m. was a proper dinner time for you. Maybe it was the control freak in me and that I liked to eat dinner around 6 p.m. as to keep hunger later in the evening at bay.

But right now, I go home each night to an empty house. Your bowls have been put up. Your dog food was donated to homeless pooches. I saw your container of biscuits this a.m. I can’t bear the throw them out and I know that I should. Your beds remain the same place. I don’t even think the cleaning lady moves them anymore to vacuum under them since she knows there isn’t new fur there. Your toy box is still over-flowing. Oh my silly best friend … what I wouldn’t kill for one more day with you, one more snuggle, one more kiss. I miss you so much. I miss the comfort you brought me. I feel my strength failing me. I feel more and more lost without you. I miss you more and more. There are ups and downs with this crazy grief thing … I hope you  can feel how much I love you, my little soul dog. The couch just doesn’t feel the same without you on it!

From the day I rescued Shelby, I think she made her life mission to make friends. Oh to be more dog! 🙂 She was such a pleaser. She loved everyone she met – without judgement. She wanted to be loved but she also gave such love.

When we moved to Seattle (home for me and new for her) from New Orleans, I moved into a cute little apt building that had about 8 units. It was perfect! Hardwood floors, tall ceilings, claw foot tub. And PET FRIENDLY! I had no idea how hard it would be to find a reasonably priced place that would let us move in. But moved in we did. The first thing I noticed was that Shelby would love to slip and slide on the hard wood floors. I put some rugs down but my poor downstairs neighbor. Shelby was just the jumper, on and off the bed. ALL the time. She would also love to sit in the window and watch the world go by. In the summer, when I had the windows open, I would worry that she wasn’t smart enough to NOT jump out when she saw a squirrel or a cat.

Soon, people in the apt complex came to know me as “Shelby’s mom” as they would hear me yell to and at her. “Shelby stop jumping”. “Shelby, for the love of GOD go potty”, “Shelby no”, “Shelby stop”… I talked with her so much.

The nice man that lived below us was an elderly man who had served in a war (perhaps Korea, Vietnam). He suffered from severe PTSD and never spoke to me. He sat on the stoop outside the apt and while I would apologize for being loud (Shelby going clickety clack with her nails), he never said a word. But he would always pet her. She soothed him. And she wasn’t high strung or bat crazy around Sam. She would sit next to him, while he chain smoked, and calmly accept his petting her back and ears.

One day, one of our other neighbors came up to me in the laundry room and inquired about Shelby. I worried that Shelby was barking during the day while I was work or something but she simply wanted to get to know Shelby better and since she was home during the day, wanted to know if she could take her out. Now as I have said before, Shelby was always a flight risk and I was definitely a nervous mom about letting anyone else watch my dog (my own mother included!). So I tentatively agreed to a trial. I gave her the leash and Shelby and those were the most excruciating and long 15 minutes of my life while she took Shelby for a trial walk. Shelby came back, tail wagging, happy as a clam and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. After putting this poor woman through the ringer, telling her Shelby was bad on a leash, and a flight risk – she came back to report that Shelby was perfectly lovely. I agreed to let her walk Shelby during the week if she felt so inclined. Shelby was around 5 years old then and starting to mellow out a bit.

Shelby and Trinity became fast friends! When I would get home from work, I would ask Shelby what adventures she had. She always wagged her tail. She would run to Trinity’s door but in the beginning, since Trinity had several cats, Shelby wasn’t allowed in their apt. Summer rolled around and in an effort to get to know the neighbors, we hosted a 4th of July BBQ. How happy was Shelby to be outside with all her friends!?!

Summer passed and soon came fall and winter. Shelby continued to have great adventures with her buddy. She was welcomed into the house (with the cats) and proved to be a good guest. I started to travel a bit for work and Trinity would keep an eye on Shelby for me while I was gone. Eventually, I don’t know how it happened but Shelby found herself over-nighting in the cat casa! Shelby and Trinity would go to the video store (where Shelby got cookies), to the coffee shop, the grocery store… Everywhere Shelby went, she made friends.

When I flew to LA to interview for the job that I would take that would relocate us to LA, Trinity kept Shelby overnight. Murphy, the cat that had been skeptical of Shelby at first, soon became her best friend. They were able to co-exist happily and peacefully watching the squirrels and other wildlife outside.

With mixed emotions, I did make the decision to relocate us to Los Angeles. When I moved into my second apt here in Los Angeles (where I live now), it was like history was repeating itself. Small complex (7 units) and people came to know me as “Shelby’s mom”. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. What a wonderful title to have. What a wonderful job to have.

I am desperately trying to re-define who I am. I was a mom for 13 years. It was what I knew how to do and it was what I did best. It truly is the one thing I am the most proud of that I have done in my 40 years on this earth. I wasn’t always the best mom to Shelby … I stayed out late, I didn’t come home sometimes, I cut her walks short when I was tired or in a bad mood but she was always cared for, she was always fed and she was always loved. And I am truly thankful that dogs live in the moment and don’t remember things in the past that we, as humans, might not be so proud of. While I look and try and figure out who I want to be, I know that I want to be more “Shelby”. I want to live more without judgement. I want to live more in the moment. I want to always stop and smell the flowers, appreciate the natural beauty that surrounds me. It is hard to move forward. The easy thing for me now is to go home and shut the windows, shut out the world. But every invitation I accept. Every walk on the beach I take. Every time I stop and truly listen to the waves crash – I feel Shelby’s paw on my shoulder pushing me forward, telling me it’s going to be OK and that she is always with me. Thank you for sending me a penny last weekend Shelby. Thank you for letting me know that I am not alone. I miss you, my baby girl. I think about you all day, every day and I know that you have made a million and one new friends, both canine and human (and probably cats too) over the bridge and you are so loved. Thank you for always being my personal ray of sunshine!

There is something to be said about adopting an adult (or non-puppy) dog from the shelter that wasn’t a surrender – there is no history on them. Oh what I wouldn’t have paid to know what Shelby’s life was like before coming to live with me. Her records didn’t indicate much – not even where they found her. But she was fixed. She was basically house-trained. She had limited manners.

I remember the first night I brought Shelby home. It was a Friday night and I was working in events at the time so I had the day off and had to work that night. Silly me. I figured I would bring the dog home and all would be fine. She would, of course, adapt, instantly to her new surroundings. Because of course, ALL dogs feel right at home in a new space. Oh how wrong was I.

I brought Shelby home (and that was the first she heard of her name since she was nameless when I adopted her). She instantly became a holy terror in the apt. She ran around like a complete bat out of hell. I gave her some water and I think I must have fed her (I was so unprepared – I didn’t even have a leash). I turned on the TV to get ready for work and she stopped dead in her tracks and jumped on the coffee table and then under the coffee table and her ears were back. She was afraid of the TV?!? Psycho mutt.

I left for work and figured, to be safe, I would attempt to ‘trap’ her in the kitchen, just in case. That was when I first realized that she was a jumper and completely NOT OK with being confined to a small space. I put up chairs and blocked her in. Or so I thought. I got home from work about midnight and she was free-roaming. On the couch. Had made herself at home. Fine. That was when I still thought that there would be no dogs on the furniture (how naive was I?).

I took her out to potty (that much I did know that I had to do with a dog) and she took off. Silly me, again, expecting a dog to come back to me that had known me for all of 12 hours and didn’t know her own name! I put some Mardi Gras beads around her neck thinking that would be a make-shift leash and BOOM – broken and she was off, again. I don’t know how (act of God maybe) but I got her back.

The next morning I took her off to Petco to get her supplies (a crate, collar, leash). The parking lot of Petco, she jumped out of of the shopping cart. Thank GOD someone helped me snag her (she was fast). I was losing interest in this quickly. So we got a collar, a crate, and leash. Everything was good but she was a puller. Oh did she pull. I thought for sure she would pull my arm out of the socket.

And the crate. Epic fail. EPIC! She was having none of that. She wouldn’t go in it. Wouldn’t have anything to do with it. She cried. She whined. She sounded like she was being skinned. I put toys in there (she destroyed them). I put a blanket in there (she ate that). It was the perfect size for her but she still messed in there and then sat in poop. She refused to embrace it. For three straight nights – I tried. I put pillows over my ears and I could still hear her cry. I put a towel over it (like you would a bird) and she ate that. She was relentless. So finally, I gave up the fight. And mom and baby slept well. I am not sure when she moved to my bed or when she won ALL the battles with confinement but she did.

For the rest of her life, if you would even utter the word “crate” her ears would go back and she would start to shake. Something, at some point, in her early life had emotionally traumatized her of being confined. When she broke her leg, the only choice was to get a crate to keep her confined while I was at work. I apologized to the neighbors in advance for the crying but it was a necessary evil. After the amputation, they told me to keep her in small room (so I put her in my bedroom) and she tried to tunnel out by eating the door (bye bye deposit).

While I will never know what Shelby’s life was like before me or how long she had lived with a family what I will always know is that she had the best life with me. At some point, about age 10, she stopped running off… she realized, I guess, that the grass wasn’t greener on the other side of the road. That she had it pretty darn good – costumes and all. And she taught me the kind of dog mom to be, the kind I hope to be should I ever enter down that road again, and with any future fur-baby, I will shower them with the same amount of love that Shelby got. And Shelby will always smile down on us and be proud of the fact that she taught me how to live and to love…. not the other way around.

On the left , where I put Shelby when I went out. On the right, what it looked like when I got home.

On one of the Tripawds forum posts, there has been a conversation about grief, how we process it and how everyone is different. Without judgement, we all have a common place to meet and share our stories about our loved ones that have passed and are able to identify other feelings and emotions that may resonate with us.  It was one such post today by one of my “Tripawd” friends that made me stop and think about my own fragile emotional state.

For as long as I can remember, I have had an uncanny way of ‘shutting’ out things that are painful to me. In fact, I shut out the memories. As many know, my father passed when I was 22 years old. I was the ultimate daddy’s girl, an only child, the apple of his eyes. He was the absolute BEST father – always there on the weekends, worked hard during the week but always made time for dinner with his family. We were so close. I was also, in part with my amazing mother but not to the same extent, a caregiver. When he finally passed, my world was shattered. I was lost, without a cause or purpose. I quit my job. Stayed in my room for 6+ months, slept all day. Emotionally and physically checked out. This was LONG before FaceBook or anything of the sort. I don’t know how it happened but I finally picked myself up, slowly, and found my new life.  Cancer took my father and it has taken YEARS for me to even consider supporting cancer research fundraisers because I was SO angry that the medications couldn’t save him. He passed at 55 years old.

About a year after he passed, I moved to New Orleans. I needed to get out of Seattle and find a new life. I didn’t (and still don’t) share many details of my father. I keep that very close to my heart. But in part is that I have unconsciously blocked out all the memories I really have. I would need to stare at photos to try and recover those memories and even, then hard to do. I mainly remember him as sick but that was such a small part of our story. My mom found some old tapes of his talking to me and as I listened, I didn’t recognize the voice. I felt awful. BUT I realized that it is how my mind/brain/heart copes.

In New Orleans, I met, who I thought, would be the man I would marry. I was happy. But when he broke my heart in a million pieces, I vowed NEVER again. “Better to have loved than loss” – so not my motto. He had had a dog. I begged for the dog, for joint custody, for anything. But ultimately, it was too painful to be around the dog and not be a family together.

Enter Shelby Lynne. I knew I wanted my own dog. But in retrospect, I think in part, it was a replacement dog for the dog of my ex. I thought it would be a good idea. I was alone in a city that I had only lived a year and had very few friends. Shelby was a holy terror the first weekend she was in my home. I truly almost returned her but I was too embarrassed and feared they wouldn’t let me ‘trade her in’.  Our bond wasn’t instant. She bolted the first night I had her and I couldn’t get her back. I tried to crate train her – epic fail. Somewhere in her life before me, she had became fearful of enclosed spaces (which made it even more odd that her last few months, her favorite place was my tiny bathroom). People told me to ‘let her cry it out’ – the dog was relentless. She cried – non-stop for over 12 hours. I said, no dogs on the bed. That lasted a day. I said no dogs on the couch (also a week). It soon became clear who ruled the apt!

But still, while I loved her, I didn’t fully feel bonded with her. The ex came back (as they always do) about 6 months later and I let him back into my heart and home. And he brought his dog for a visit. What was fascinating to witness was his dog, who had always adored me and I had bonded with, came up to snuggle me and little Shelby was having none of that. What happened was two dogs – meeting for the first time – not understanding why they BOTH couldn’t be top dog in my world. At that moment, I chose to comfort Shelby. She was my baby and my connection with her was stronger. (Which was great since the ex went MIA 48 hours later).

So it became me and Shelby. That was my world and it worked. I’ve dated other people, had other relationships over the years but I always keep people at arm’s distance. I don’t trust anyone – truly – 100%. In my mind, I can’t risk getting hurt and letting someone get close to me and then disappear and die (like the ex and my dad). I am so fearful of loss that I keep my heart so guarded that it’s virtually impossible to get in there. Except for Shelby. Without being aware, I did open my heart up again. I did love completely and in ways that I didn’t think that I could. And it felt amazing. She was there when my heart was broken again and again. She was there when I lost my job. She was there every anniversary of the passing of my father. Shelby truly taught me that it is OK to love and to lose and you can survive.

Am I still sad? Yes, my heart breaks for Shelby every single day. I long to feel her fur, carry her in my arms like a baby, ask her if she wants a cookie (those ears!!!). I lost my father when I was 22. I got Shelby when I was 26. I struggle with my own personal identity – not being a caregiver for the first time in a really, really, really long time. It’s a whole new life/world for me. And it scares me.

Will I trust again? Will I love again? Only time will tell. But Shelby will always remain the true love of my life. I feel so lucky to have found my ‘heart dog’ so early in life and to have had her show how to really live and how to ‘be more dog’. Right now, I plan and try to live like Shelby … in the moment, in the hour, in the day. Too far into the future scares me. Too much in the past makes me sadder. And I need to share her stories because I fear (as with my father) I will forget those memories as my body/mind/soul try and heal.

BUT I thank you Shelby, for the life lessons, the gifts and the love … I will do my best to make you proud as you watch over me till we meet again. I miss you my little snuggle bunny…