Category Archives: Dexter

Gratitude Friday

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pdxsky
1. Visiting family in Oregon. It was a shorter trip this year, and having just lost Dexter I wasn’t necessarily at my best, but it was good to be there, with them. I went to my youngest niece’s softball tournament with my mom and dad, saw her pitch and my brother coach, watched movies with my mom (she made me a marionberry cobbler!), “met” the feral cat my dad has been taming (looked at it through a window because that’s as close as I could get), hung out a bit with my oldest niece, went to visit one aunt who lives on the coast with a few other aunts along for the ride, ate some seafood, played a new dice game, and walked on the beach. It’s nice to sink into the rhythms of their life, but it’s also good to get back to my own.

2. Walking on the beach. I was so happy to be there, but it was mixed with sadness because our trip last summer was our last before Dexter’s cancer diagnosis, the last time he’d be with us in that place, an innocent time before getting the worst news and I couldn’t help remembering, missing him.

3. Marionberries. You can only get them there, and I can’t eat enough to be satisfied — so good.

momscobbler4. Having a smart phone. I resisted it for so long, and still cringe each month when I have to pay the bill, but it sure is nice, especially when I am away from home and Eric can text me, send me pictures of my dog.

Bonus Joy: The way Sam squealed when he first saw me after I’d been away from him for six days.

Day of Rest

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dexlittledcouch

Last night in bed, I told Eric I want our next dog to be a cuddler. Obi and Sam didn’t/don’t like to cuddle so much as lean in, and got/get annoyed if I hold on too tight (Obi would wiggle his way out, and Sam has even growled a few times to get me to back off), but Dexter was definitely a cuddler, and I’m really missing that — snuggling up next to him, warm and soft, having him stretch and curl against me and sigh — missing him.

This video of Andrea Gibson performing A Letter to my Dog, Exploring the Human Condition, captures perfectly the “why,” why I love my dogs so much, and why it is so hard to let them go when they go, “My beating heart with fur and legs.”

At the end, the video says “Every animal adopted saves the life of two, (the animal rescued, along with the animal who can now take the other’s place in the shelter for an opportunity to be adopted),” but I have to disagree with that. Every animal adopted saves the life of three — the one adopted, the one who is given space and a chance for the same, and the human animal rescued by the one adopted.