Saying Goodbye to Bella

My son's dog has passed away.

Bella was 15+, a basset mix rescued from a shelter in PA when my son was 9.

Hounds are outdoor dogs, not pets...
Or so this former country-girl thought. 

My old gal, Amanda, had passed in February. I'd been promising my son a dog for almost a year. In July I attended a writer's conference in the area and stopped in to the shelter where my friend had gotten her springer spaniel. I was hoping to find a similarly sweet and intelligent friend for my troubled son.
We'd already been on quite a journey. The tantrums started at about age 3. He was recently 9, and rather than diminishing with age, they'd grown worse. There was more to come, but we already knew something was wrong. We just didn't know what, or how far we'd have to go before the road would turn for him.

When I talked to the folks running the shelter, he asked me, "How do you feel about basset hounds?"

I rolled my eyes. I had hounds as a kid, and they were noisy, slobbery, boneheaded doofuses, better kept in outdoor kennels than in the house, due to the difficulty of housetraining. My experience with hounds told me they were hunting dogs, not pets. He told me that she'd been returned to the shelter by a family that didn't look after her properly, that she was shy and sweet. I relented and agreed to meet her, knowing I would be bringing my son back later to look at puppies. Smaller, fluffier, easier, trainable puppies.

She came into the visitor's room looking anxious. She went immediately to the windows, staring out as if looking for someone. Looking for her family to come back for her. The family that had returned her, bone thin and shaking. She still wanted them. And my heart melted a little.

I brought my son in, as planned, careful to explain that he was free to choose a PUPPY. That he should meet her, but he didn't have to choose her...
It was a lost cause. She was brought into the visitor's room and LAUNCHED herself at him. Wagging, wiggling, facelicking happiness embodied in a bony hound dog. "I want THIS one, Mom."

It took us SO long to get weight on her.

And so it began.
She came home, only to hide under the kitchen table and bark and growl at my husband. She managed, with her six-inch legs, to get on top of the kitchen table to raid the butter dish. She refused to eat at first, forcing us to get creative in concocting dishes she would nibble at, until she eventually decided to eat properly. She was so thin at first that the vet wouldn't spay her- and by the time we got enough weight on her, we discovered that my dog Charlie had been a bit frisky and there were pups on the way.

I was worried sick... She'd just gotten healthy, and the vet had revealed that her stated age of 3-4 years was inaccurate- by then she was close to 8.

She successfully delivered 11 pups, but 4 did not survive past the second day. Of the seven remaining, we were able to find homes for 5. Two of her girls remain with us to this day.

Bella with her girls.

In the past few months, I noticed a change. She was moving more slowly. Returning to her picky eating habits. Having more digestive upsets, which have been common with her, on and off, the entire time she's been with us. (We've consulted the vet before, and he told us there was nothing to be done; she simply had a sensitive digestive tract.)

A long story short... She was an old lady- past 15 now by our best guesstimate- and she was tired.

She loved the outdoors, even in winter, but summer sun on grass was her favorite.

She spent her last day lying in the sun in the grass. At some point she wandered out by the kennel to be near her girls, content to lie there. We brought her in that evening and she had cuddles on the porch and fell asleep in one of the recliners. Fearing the evening air would be too chilly for her old bones, I moved her inside that night, into her crate with a fresh blanket. When we got up in the morning, she was gone.

This has been a journey. She was with us when my son was expelled from school in the 5th grade. When he was throwing his tantrums (Which we know now were expressions of anxiety.) When he told me he never really wanted a dog anyway, but cried when, out of sheer frustration, I threatened to find her a new home.

She taught him that some tasks- like feeding the dog and taking her out- must be completed regardless of feelings or mood. That some things are more important than our own internal turmoil. That when someone, or something, is depending upon us, we must set aside our personal challenges and rise up.

She helped him grow, helped him mature, and helped teach him empathy. She was always there with her floppy, silky ears, and her sneaky way of climbing onto the couch when she knew she was supposed to go into her crate for the night.

She was slobbery and smelly and noisy and stubborn- everything a hound dog is. She was also, for 8 years of his life, my son's friend and companion. She was a good dog, and she will be missed.

Rest easy, old Girl. You've earned it. 

Building Together

Whirlwind... That's our lives recently.

We're settling in, adjusting to a new family dynamic. My kids have gained a sibling and a stepfather. Beloved and Doolittle have gained two more kids and siblings. We're just getting past the "stepping lightly" polite stage of people getting to know one another and afraid to offend, and hurling into the sibling-arguments stage of "I know we haven't lived together long, but I'm not putting up with your crap" stage of security, knowing that this is here to stay. 

We're doing our best to build a lasting foundation.

Some days, I get tired of the bickering and nonsense, but most days, I'm warmed by it- knowing that the kids are secure enough in their relationships to start being jerks to one another. They know that they can fight, knowing that the relationship can take the abuse. That they'll make up later. That it'll be ok- that this family isn't going anywhere, and we're in this for the long haul. 

In the midst of all this, we're planning a wedding. And doing life... We just replaced our beater van with another pair of beaters- a rusty, banger of a Cherokee, and an F150 that was thrown into the deal upon agreement to let the seller have our old van (he'll scrap it out.) And life goes on. 

Among all this is a sense of contentment. A sense of settling in. A sense of security in the future that we're building together. Of foundations being laid. 

I don't know where this will all go. I'd love to say that I see a rosy future with his kids and mine walking linked arm in arm off into the sunset of our elder years, and us secure in the knowledge that they'll always have each other. 

I hope they'll always be together. Even if they do drive one another nuts.

As the children of mixed families, Beloved and I both know that may not happen. When step parents pass away, many times the children drift apart. The family created by marriage splinters in the absence of the glue that held them together. I pray that will not be the case with our children, but I know there are no guarantees. So, I welcome these days, the bickering and making up, the laughing and the goofing off and the going off together to do who-knows-what without Mom and Dad, because they are knitting their own foundations. I just pray it will hold for the long haul... that what we are building together as a family will become a shelter for our children, and our grandchildren. 

Life, love, and family are precious. 

Her name was Rachel

I'm sharing this in honor of the brave folks of the Twitterverse, who participate each week in the #PTSDChat hashtag conversation on Wednesday nights.

Sometime I may tell more of her story, but for now, this is as far as I can go. 

The rain is falling outside and I’m not thinking of anything really. Just watching the drops come down, splattering on the grass and road and window, when you come to my mind, uninvited, rushing in as always all bright eyes and out of control curls, grabbing my hand and pulling me from my reverie.

Come dance! It’s raining! Come dance with me!

Giggling, tugging, skipping, you lead and I follow, pulled by an unstoppable force, unadulterated joy in its purest form. We dance… You dance, and I watch as you spin and twirl and run and stumble and move through the rain, letting it splash over you, letting it wet your hair, which makes it even more unmanageable, letting it wet your face and your teeth as you smile into the sky, laughing all the time.

Dance safe my beautiful sweet girl. Let the rain fall and splatter on the grass under your brown bare feet. Let it soak into that wild hair and make it even more wild. Spin around and laugh and laugh. Let heaven ring with your laughter. Let it embrace that joy and keep it safe. Someday, maybe, I’ll be able to dance with you again. 

Attack of the WHAT???

Dear readers, I am, at this very moment, having an emotional meltdown. Over a video game. With real tears trickling. It's not pretty. It's an ugly cry, and it comes from down deep, because this is more than "just a game." This is the full circle. This is the infinity snake catching up with itself. The mobius strip making the connection... It's just a game, to be sure, but to me... it's more.

Some of you, if you know me in real life, have heard me talk about Minecraft. About the connection forged between myself and my troubled tween. My son has been playing Minecraft almost from the beginning. He played the truly early stages- the first releases of the game. He would get SO excited when updates were released. He, quite frankly, drove me half mad with his chatter about creepers and endermen and zombies and mobs and mods and downloads.

Redstone was a complete mystery to me. It still is to some extent. I didn't understand the appeal of this blocky, weird game, until one day, seeing the disappointment in his face when he caught me rolling my eyes at just one more rendition of "Me and Brody got cornered by these zombies but his wolf was fighting for us and then this creeper came along and..."

For an instant, I caught sight of just how deeply my little boy, whose father had just walked out of all our lives, was hurting. I decided to appease him in the only way I knew how- I asked him to teach me Minecraft.

It was the beginning of an era. With a lot of frustration and some swearing (mostly me) and some "Geez, Mom, you're REALLY bad at this!" eyerolling comments, he introduced me to the game. And then, in an effort to understand it better, I did what I do best - research. Research took  me to Youtube, to explore the gaming channels... and that's when I discovered a whole other dimension of minecraft- Mods.

The very first modded Minecraft "lets play" Youtubers I watched were Generik B, Chimney Swift, and BDoubleOO, playing "Attack of the B-Team." Their commentary was engaging. The gameplay was intriguing. Chimney, in particular, caught my attention with his infectious enthusiasm and his mischievous approach to multiplayer gameplay. Soon, my son started playing B-Team, too, and got me to play it. I eventually upgraded my computer to better handle the modpack. Together, my son and I discovered this world. We explored it. We built things together. We laughed. We shouted. We got frustrated. We created and destroyed. We argued and collaborated. We learned... and we grew.

These days, my son doesn't really play with me. For a while, we played servers together and built incredible things. He showed me his creative world in which he built some insane redstone projects. Even now, when he has a girlfriend and a life that is slowly carrying him away from the childish pursuits of Minecraft and further toward the interests of an older teen, he can still be drawn back in. We still watch Etho, another Let's Player, together. We discuss his builds and talk about how crazy his "sand worm" project is, and how cool. Even as my son is growing away from his early interest in Minecraft, I am building a small hobby channel and immersing myself in the community that nurtured that early interest.

And now, a new era is opening up. Attack of the C-Team will be a sequel to the early Attack of the B-Team series. Many of the same Youtubers who participated the first time around will be involved in this remake. To call my reaction "excited" is like comparing Mt. Vesuvius to a sparkler.

This new game is about more than Minecraft. It's just a game, after all. There may be mods in this pack that I don't care for. The changes with the update may not appeal to me. I might not be as excited to play once I see what's been added and what's been taken away. Knowing all of that doesn't dim my excitement one bit.

These past few years have been... difficult.
My kids and I have navigated some rough waters. Not only has the divorce caused enormous emotional upheaval, we subsequently lost my best friend and my sister. Both deaths were sudden and unexpected. The devastation was deep and is lasting. For the past year or more, I've been knocked off my feet with grief, just keeping my head above water. It's only been in recent weeks that I've begun to feel as if life might have a chance of returning to some semblance of normalcy, and that the gaps left by the losses might close enough so that the feeling of continuously falling into them will end and our feet might once again touch the ground.

While no game, no exciting news, and no new adventure can possibly begin to touch the depth of the losses we've suffered, there is a moment, after one has been walking through darkness for so long, that a flicker of light can be seen. There is a moment when you realize that the tunnel you've been walking through isn't endless after all, that you will step out of it. The sun will once again warm your face, and you will feel the breeze against your fingertips. Spring will come, even after the longest winter. What is lost to the past can never be recovered, but there will be new experiences and new joys and new chances to laugh and live and breathe together. There is healing, and that, my friends, is something worth celebrating.

My kids have both expressed interest in exploring this new modpack together. The idea of playing together again, and discovering the ways in which we've changed, as players and in our relationships, is exciting beyond words. The fact that they still want to play with me... It's a balm to the soul.
So, forgive me if I dance just a little too exuberantly at this announcement. If I get a little carried away, and get just a little too excited. It's been a long, cold, dark night. I'm ready for the sun.

Bring it on.

For the Sake of the Children

"For the sake of the children..."

How often do divorce parents hear that phrase? How often is it spoken by well meaning folks giving advice?

"Stay together if you can. You know, for the sake of the children."
"Surely it can be worked out. For the sake of the children."
"You really shouldn't speak badly of your spouse, for the sake of the children."

Although the first two did not pan out in my marriage- we were not able to stay together, nor were were able to work out a compromise that included him staying in contact with an old girlfriend, I have done my best to remember the third. My kids have big, absorbent hearts. They soak up everything that is thrown at them, whether it's love or judgement or dismay or dislike. They've grown stronger as they've gotten older, and gotten better at discerning between the opinions of others and their own realities. They're old enough, now, to understand the deviance between their father's protestations and arguments and his actions.

I rarely write about the failures of my marriage, not because there are any secrets, but because it's a cliche'd story of a foolish wife who was blind to her husband's wandering ways. I actually encouraged his online friendship with the old flame, secure in our 15 years of marriage, and in the thought that he'd long gotten over his high school sweetheart and moved on. I had a similar teenage flame, and while I retain friendly feelings, even affection, I recognize the folly in trying to go back and even since becoming single again have not sought to rekindle the old spark.

If left unattended, it can burn everything.

I thought we were happy. I thought he was content. I thought she was no danger to my marriage... And I was right. She wasn't. The danger to my marriage was not a woman willing to cheat with a married man, disregarding her own family and marriage in pursuit of a teenage fantasy. The danger was in trusting in our past to cement our future. Trusting in a man who had proven over time to have narcissistic tendencies, favoring his own desires and needs over those of his family. One of our most frequent arguments was over the fact that he resisted taking our daughter for an eye exam, insisting that she "could see just fine," yet had money for his yearly hunting trips out of state and didn't hesitate to spend freely when a new gun or tool caught his eye.

To be fair, we lived comfortably enough. We spent nearly 10 years renovating This Old Heap, as I have titled the 200 year old farmhouse we live in. He invested in our home. We went on an annual camping trip, which were some of our best times as a family. When he left, he readily agreed to my insistence upon retaining the house- where else would I go with our kids? Physical custody was never really a question- I'd been a stay at home mom for over 12 years.

This Old Heap, with siding added, doesn't look so bad.The upper half
and porch were the results of our hard work. My brother added the siding,
in order to make the house more economical to heat, so that the kids
and I could afford to continue living here.

What has made me sad, since the split, what has taken me through the stages of grief, from anger to bitterness, and finally to letting go and to peace, has been the abandonment.
When he left, I understood that our life together had come to an end. It had, in fact, come to an end months before. I hadn't allowed him to touch me since learning of his second round of cheating. I no longer trusted in the safety of monogamy. To be blunt, I didn't know what he might have picked up in his illicit travels and wasn't about to risk an STD. I knew, when he left, that "we" were over. And, although losing the love of 17 years was devastating, I was able to accept it.

What I couldn't, and can't accept, is his continuing disregard for his children.

A father should not have to be ordered by the court to support his kids.
A father should recognize that children have ongoing needs, and that the "gift" of a house to the spouse who spent over a decade forgoing an income in order to raise the children does not buy them clothes or shoes, or food once he has decided to move on.
A father, even if he is financially strained and/or unable to be with his kids physically, should make a consistent, on going effort to maintain communication and a relationship with his children.

As I sit here reading this over, considering the words I am dropping onto the waters, to allow to drift out into the world, I am considering whether it's right for me to share these thoughts, to express the hurt and the anger. I am considering whether it's the right thing to do. I'm wondering if I should simply delete the post for the sake of the children.

The year he left, they both returned to public school, in order
to allow me more time to build my business. Because they're amazing,
empathetic hearts. #SoBlessed 

But, I feel to do so would be disrespectful to my kids. Although I try to use my words carefully, they are not stupid. It is not my thoughts or experiences that have molded their opinions. It is their own.
My kids love their dad, but they understand his limitations. They have a realistic view of what they can expect from him, both physically and emotionally. They take whatever opportunities they have to talk and spend time with him, but don't actively seek him out in defense of their own hearts. In spite of his assurance that they can "call him any time," they know that he is simply not able to be there for them in the ways the need him to be.
I can not, and will not, pretend that our circumstances are otherwise, or that by not sharing this post, reality will somehow magically alter. It is what it is.

I will, however, share this post, in hopes of reassuring other moms and dads who are dealing with this kind of situation- with a spouse who is not abusive or addicted, but is simply uninterested in doing their part as a parent. While abuse and addiction are horrors I am grateful we have avoided, abandonment carries its own consequences, and the scars are deep and painful.

If you've been abandoned by a spouse or parent, my messages to you are:
You're not crazy. Even if he didn't hit or yell, it's not ok to abandon children who depend upon you for support and emotional connection.
You're not alone. There are many of us out there.
You don't have to let this make you bitter. Anger is justifiable, but dwelling on the unfairness isn't healthy. Seek out healthy relationships, for you and your kids. Build supports into your lives. Let the person go- there's no sense clinging to someone who doesn't want to be there.

If you've read this far, thank you, for listening. May God keep and bless you and your loved ones. If you're a parent, remember, please, that divorce is not about your kids. It's NEVER about your kids. You really are responsible to be a parent, even if you're divorced. Even if you don't like your spouse anymore. Even if he or she is a raving lunatic- you're still responsible to BE A PARENT.
Your kids need you, and that is all that matters.
All of it.
Your kids are ALL OF IT. Never forget that. For the sake of the children.

Godbless.
~*~*~*~*~

“To be in your children's memories tomorrow, you have to be in their lives today.” ― Barbara Johnson