Ramblings of the Head

There's not really much I feel like saying. Today was better but still filled with sadness. I'm beginning to feel like I have some of the pychotic nature of my aunt within me. She's totally out of her mind about her dog.......like, she eats after them and massages their butts and lets them lick her tongue. Ewwwwwww..............ugh! That is just so disgustingly nasty. But, in my little tear filled depression I'm beginning to wonder if I don't have some of that overboardedness....is that even a word???.......harbored within me somewhere. Maybe it's heriditary or something. I still cried today. Not quite all day long like I did yesterday but it's safe to say today certainly wasn't my grandest of days. I fear what I must come across like to others and it makes me rethink my own sanity for being this emotional over something that is somewhat common in the animal world. Dogs get put to sleep everyday........but then again it was never supposed to be our dog. I don't know. I've always been like this where animals are concerned. Any one of my family members can attest to that. I keep kind of regretting putting him to sleep....thinking it was possibly a decision made in way too much haste and in the stunned, surprised emotion of the moment. Maybe we could've done more to control the situation or something. I don't know why I even question it. It only makes everything worse. And reality is.......he really really attacked Brad and why in the world would we risk everything to keep him in his growing state of agitation? I know beyond everything that he never would've hurt any of the children but I know for certain that he wouldn't have had a problem hurting me, and obviously no problem hurting Brad. And the liability he posed to us when he got out and ran all over town scouting out prey...whether it be the millions of feral cats or the grumpy neighbor's dearly loved small dog....was not worth it. I'm not emotionally up for a lawsuit and I'm not ready to fork out finances of that magnitude defending a wild, out of control dog and a situation we could've avoided. But, insanely, I still loved him dearly and I still miss him. Maybe because I know he just never would've turned on the children. He guarded them with his life. So, it's not like they were at risk. Never mind the fact Brad and I were. Insanity......I know. And Tigger was just a household name. Tigger and Athena just go together.....they had become twins to me. So, to speak of everything having to do with him in the past tense is just odd and awkward.

Children are so entirely resilient though. What is it that changes once adulthood sets in? Why is it that in aging letting go becomes so much harder and becomes somewhat like disentangling yourself from a web? What is it about children that enables them to pick up and move on so very quickly? Both Grayson and Evye informed me today that they were over Tigger. I looked at them incredulously and asked, "Like.....you already don't miss him amymore????" Grayson goes, "Yep....it was really really sad and I couldn't stop crying yesterday but now I'm good. I'm over it." Oh..........well, huh. That's a whiplash. Especially given my torrent of insane emotions. So then Evye comes in today and I asked how she was. She smiled up at me while stirring the eggs and replied with, "I'm good!" I asked with a smile, "So, no more sadness? No more tears?" And she said cheerily back, "Well........I miss him alot but I'm over him. I don't need to cry anymore. We'll just get a new puppy that looks just like him and name him Tigger and he'll act just like him...........except he'll mind and like goats and not be cranky and not run all over town. But he'll love us just like Tigger did." I applauded her on her ability to pick up and move on...since she's the emotional drama queen. Course.......I'm one to be talking right now. She then stated that when I cry it makes her need to cry but that everything'll be ok because we'll get a new puppy and I won't think about Tigger. I had to inform her that a puppy may be some time out. I'm not ready to take on another dog just yet....especially a puppy. I figure we eventually will end up with on but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.........and so far it's not anywhere in sight. Surprisingly, Brad is open to a puppy. After all of the talking he did with the vet and discussing Tigger's downfall and then contacting the GSD rescue lady from where we adopted Athena Brad is now an advocate of raising the next GSD from puppyhood. According to the few that we have talked to concerning this whole issue we would be much better off raising a puppy in our lifestyle instead of trying to make an older one adapt to it. Given the number of children, the activity level, the livestock, other smaller and larger animals and then already having Athena it would just be better to bring a newborn puppy into it. So, at some point we may tread down that road.

It still is a little odd to admit I'm this emotional over the whole thing though. It seems sometimes that it's just a fact of life that I am overreacting to. But the fact I can't quit crying is just reality. I went out there today and saw the 2 food bowls and I cried and then I went in the shop and saw the 2 mats and Athena rush to her's, waiting expectantly with upturned ears for Tigger to run to his. She kills me the most. She pants and looks at me waiting and waiting for him....like she is forever certain and has every faith that I will return her forever friend. When I turned her loose this morning in the yard she didn't even run to the fence, as is her morning routine to chase the neighbor dog. She stopped just inside the gate and waited and waited. Then she went to the shed and sniffed in there for him and then she started her yard search smelling and looking and then returned to me with upturned eyes and just laid at my feet. And yep, I cried. Maybe it's so much more than a dog to me. Maybe it's the years and years of suppressed heartaches and disappoinment I felt over waiting and waiting for help that seemingly never came. Maybe it's something within me that aches in a foolishly human way, turning her dog faith in me into my own human emotions of what I felt so deeply years ago. I remember the hurt and the ache and the tears shed in the dark every night as I laid waiting and hoping for my world to be righted......and I waited and waited and it never came. Maybe it's the really really suppressed grief I had after Grandpa died as I laid in the dark and prayed and prayed and waited and cried for his return. As I dreamed night after night that he would come back and get me. Maybe what I feel is not even dog related at all.......but the very long ago grief that never was allowed to be expressed. I wouldn't cry, I refused to even talk about it at all. I shoved it deeper and deeper and separated myself with ever widening gaps between me and anything that made me face the emotions of it. So, now here I am 22 years later and death is still a very disastrous thing to try and deal with. The hurt those 22 years ago, the ache, the void, the absolute feeling of wishing I were dead too was stifling. It suffocated me. So, I buried it. I didn't know what to do with it so I never did anyting but shover it farther and farther down. I never allowed myself to even think about death. Thus maybe the reason I was so moved and shaken and asbolutely changed the week that Copeland Farley died which happened to be the exact same day that Tigger killed our baby goat and I had to deal with all of her dying cries. Maybe the Lord is using this stuff to pull me out and force me to deal with this stuff. I don't know. It sounds pretty far fetched and insane to me. In fact....so much so I'm not even sure I'll actually post this knowing that a ton of other people read this crap. I guess it's just that death is so final in every regard. I guess that's what I'm trying to get at. And I guess that this dea with Tigger wasn't exactly like an old dog, having lived a good ole happy full life, died in peace. It all came to a very traumatic end and he wasn't even close to being considered old. But........it happens. Stuff happens and they get euthanized. And it happens alot and it's just a dog. The world goes on without even blinking.

I look at this whole sitaution and I cannot help but think of this family and feel ridiculously absurd in my tears. I first found her blog through a large family homeschool blog link. I stayed tuned in for awhile and then quit reading. Then one of the fellow Concho homeschoolers sent out an email for prayer for them. I read and was absolutely stunned at the turn of events in their lives. I cannot even begin to fathom the absolute agony and pain she is walking through right now. Pain so deep and so huge it is incomprehensible to me. I cannot ever imagine losing Brad. I cannot imagine being forced to move on and continue on without him by my side. We are each other's everything. As I looked at Tigger's bowl today and as I saw his mat my heart went out to this mom. If I feel this way over a stupid dog what in the world does she feel, what pain, as she sees her husband's clothes still hanging in the closet, lays in bed at night and feels the cold of the other side where he will never lay next to her again, rises alone in the morning and stirs her coffee knowing he'll never walk through that door again, tucks her kids in bed knowing he'll never kiss them goodnight anymore and that her little one may not even remember him? I cannot imagine having to deal with that and having to walk through that with young children. And once again I am brought back to reality and realize how completely good my life is......how completely peaceful and intact my whole entire life is. We may have some unpaid bills, we may have stuff that irritates me to deal with, we may have a dead dog.......but my life is good......very very good. And I am blessed in every regard.

Alright, I was going to post some pics but this post went in a direction I never intended it to go. So, I shall start over with a new post and hopefully not too many will actually read this one. If you do just don't comment because I don't think I even want to know what you think about me and my whole little dog grieving issue.