Blessing From the Backseat: July 2010

Thursday, July 22, 2010

3 Days

Psalm 30:5
Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.

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It's been three days. Three days since I last rubbed her old lady whiskers. Three days since I last smelled her sweet breath. Three days since I last felt her lick my toes.

It's been three days since my heart broke into a million pieces and I just can't seem to pick them up and move on.

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I know I need time to grieve.....but it's so hard to find the time when I'm constantly trying to entertain an almost three year old. I can't be sad around him. I can't let him see me cry. Not about this. I can't be sad because I don't want him to be sad....I want him to know that she's in Heaven with Jesus and that that is something to be happy about.

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So I wait. I wait until no one is around and I crawl into my unmade bed and smother my face in my pillow and just let.it.all.out.

And I feel better now.

Now I can write about that night. The night that Kevin and I will never forget...the night that stood still for what seemed like an eternity. The night that brought us closer....if that is even possible.

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Looking back, I first started noticing something was wrong about 2 months ago. Bentley was shedding uncontrollably. I knew it was summer and that dogs shed in the summer...but this was different. In 7 years, it had never been this bad.

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We joked about how she must be going through "meno-paws".....funny at the time. But in the back of my mind....something was saying, "this isn't right".

She was acting fine...like her normal self....maybe a little bit more lazy...but it was the middle of summer.

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I noticed Saturday morning she didn't jump up in bed with me like she normally did when Kevin got in the shower. This has been her routine for years. As soon as his alarm clock would go off in the mornings, she would wait patiently for him to get out of bed and she would ever so sneakily jump right in and fill his spot. Most mornings I never even knew that he had left.....I would feel her warm body next to mine and never budge. On the days that he felt the need to snooze 13 times in a row....she would just sit next to his side of the bed and let out the biggest sigh...as if saying, "Seriously dude??? 13 times???? Get up, you're gonna be late for work and I'm ready to cuddle with Mama".

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But when I woke Saturday, she was lying on the living room rug. I went to work, came home, got ready for a party, and walked out the door with Kevin leaving Grayson and Bentley home with my parents. The next morning she was lying on the living room rug. We were out the door headed for lunch and then a long day of shopping. We came home around 6 that evening and she didn't meet us at the door. Strange. She was laying on the living room rug. Again. We chalked it up to her being tired from playing with my parents dog all weekend.

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As I walked to the bedroom, I noticed a big puddle of....what was that??? Pee???? She hadn't peed in the house in years.....she's held it for longer than 15 hours before.....what was going on? I looked at her and she just looked so ashamed.

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The next morning, Gray and I ran some errands and arrived home after lunch.....she didn't meet us at the door. She had been laying on her bed in our room...I had to go look for her. I layed down and rubbed her ears and scratched her old lady whiskers and she just layed there and licked my hands...never once wagging her tail.

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She finally walked to her water bowl and I heard that it was empty so I refilled it and she licked it dry....in a matter of seconds.

Kev came home around 6 and she didn't budge from the living room rug. He layed down with her and loved on her without wagging her tail....so unlike her. He's her knight in shining armor....he hung the moon in her eyes....she's ALWAYS been HIS baby girl....something was so not right.

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I finished making dinner and as we sat down to eat, she got up and walked very slowly to her water bowl....again licking it bone dry. Kevin noticed that her belly looked "puffy".....it looked SWOLLEN.....I told him when we were finished with dinner, he needed to take her to the ER.

And then it hit me. Cancer. It's back. How could I have been so naive...so stupid???

But she hadn't been vomiting like before.....she hadn't seemed sick...my heart sank.

She was trying to be so strong....she was laying under the table, licking my feet....comforting ME!

Oh Bentley! Boo bear....I'm so sorry!! How long have you been feeling so horrible and yet acting so strong???

Kevin called me from the vet and and through his tears he told me that I needed to get there as soon as I could...that we didn't have long.

A mass of cancer had grown in her stomach and was shutting down all of her organs.....she wouldn't be coming back home this time. This was it. I had to be strong....for her and for him.

When I walked into that cold, back room and saw her and Kevin laying on the floor with a layer of white fur laying around her like snow....I lost it.

I couldn't help it. I cried like a baby...holding her and my husband, knowing that this would be the last time I could love on her. Oh God, "Why"?????

Kevin and I made the decision to stay while they gave her the "shots"...the vet called it her "Heaven juice"...I liked that. It was very peaceful and very quick. She licked both of our hands one last time as if she knew.....how did she know?

When she exhaled her last breath...there was a very peaceful calm and then all at once, the other dogs in the kennel started barking. It gave me chills, but also a peace....as if they were telling us that she wasn't in pain any longer. How did they know???

That night was the hardest....I couldn't sleep and knew Kevin couldn't either....we held each other all night, without saying a word.

I woke up the next morning and couldn't breathe. Kevin had left for work and she wasn't laying beside me and it hit me. She's really gone.

Yesterday was a little easier.

Today, a little more.

I don't think this hole will ever fully heal....I've washed everything with her hair on it, I've swept and vaccumed and mopped a half a dozen times....but each time I walk in the house, I anticipate her running to the door, wagging her tail. I cooked her favorite meal tonight. Ribeyes. Kevin never eats the fat and she knows this and would wait so patiently for it. Tonight it all went to waste and it made me sad. Grayson dropped a piece of meat on the ground and immediately said, "It's okay, Beet Deet will get it"...but she didn't. She wasn't there.

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I know time will heal our hearts but the pain of losing her will never truly go away. She was our first "baby" and she has been through it all with us. Every apartment. Every burnt dinner. Our engagement. Our wedding. My first and second pregnancy. Bringing home Grayson for the very first time. Getting up every two hours for the first 2 months of his life.

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I miss you Bentley Boo Bear.....I really, really do.

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Matthew 5:4
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Waiting: 34 Weeks

Grayson waiting for the fireworks to begin: Lake Possum Kingdom 7/3/10

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It's a strange feeling to know that your life is about to change. Usually, it just changes. Out of nowhere. Like in softball when I was eight-years old, a hopeless athlete forced to play center-field for an entire season, because that was the position that got the least action. And, of course, game after game, I waited, waited, WAITED for some action, my eye on the sky, until the day came that I stopped waiting because....screw waiting! No one is ever going to hit the ball all the way out to center-field. Except someone did. The one day I wasn't paying attention. The day I was looking for ladybugs.

I don't know if I caught two balls in the two seasons I played center-field, which was why I eventually begged my Mom to quit.....or the fact that when I tried to throw the ball home, I wacked my coach upside the head...yes, that really happened. He got a concussion and I was scarred for life. I never wanted to play again.

Waiting gives me a stomach ache, even if there is absolutely no reason to be nervous. Waiting in line at Starbucks and my nerves are a flutter. It's going to be my turn and I can't decide between the vanilla frappachino or the pumpkin latte and what the heck did Kev want again???? Was it 2 splendas and 1 creamer or vice versa??? Waiting for the mail. Waiting for friends to arrive at a house party. Anxiety takes over. I start sweating. I pace and clean and check my cell-phone for missed calls and messages. I re-ponytail my hair. Again. And again...

The butterflies arrived this week. In the form of kicks and nudges and hiccoughs and... nerves. Or maybe its just gas. No, but it isn't gas. I know gas. Gas and me are like old friends who don't like to be seen in public together. This is something bigger: an acute case of butterflies.

There is no anticipation quite like a pregnancy. Waiting for someone to "be" is a pretty nerve-wracking experience, even if they're the happiest kind of nerves. Nerves with smiley-faces and silly string.

Waiting for Grayson 8/10/07

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Today, I was crossing the parking lot with a smoothie and two cups of ice coffee in one hand, Grayson's hand in the other, when it occurred to me that, very soon, I won't be able to do such a thing. Not without some help or a stroller, or at the very least, a large bag full of supplies. I haven't carried a diaper bag in almost two years, and the thought of binkies and bottles and burp-cloths both excites and terrifies me.

I'm so together right now. I feel like I can do anything. I can mother and work and sleep and pursue creative schemes, and meet friends for lunch and go relax in a swimming pool because my son has mastered the $2 floaties.... I can pack a lunch in five-minutes and get out the door in ten. I can spend an entire day without so much as thinking about a stroller. An entire month, even. I can spend an afternoon at the park and know at every moment where my child is, what he's doing and if/when he needs me to give him a boost or push him on the swing. I can, in one hand, balance two full cups of coffee on top of a 10 ounce berry smoothie with Calcium boost.

For now.

I feel like I have finally figured out how to be a mother, a friend, a wife, and an individual without leaving anyone out. I am confident in my multi-tasking across busy parking lots. I know what I'm doing...

Aha! But not for long.

And so, the butterflies. The twisted bellyaches that growl and vibrate the unknown. The nervous anticipation of standing in the outfield with my glove extended toward the sky, whispering, "I got it! I got it! I got it!" because that's what the coaches tell you to say when you think you got it. When you think you can catch the ball. When it's falling right over you! Right into your glove!

And, "I got it," I think, standing here, once again, in center field, the farthest position from the pitcher's mound. And of course I do. I will. I'll catch the ball. Maybe not on the fly, per say. It might take a bounce or two before it finds its way into my glove.

But that's the game. And that's motherhood... And I'm sure its been said, a thousand times before, in ways far more eloquent than I can express, that the moment we think we have it all under control, is the ideal moment to lose our balance and spill coffee all over our silly metallic $12.99 sandals.