It was Christmas Eve 2010 when 27-year-old Michelle settled hungover into the couch to nap off the night before. Maybe watch a movie. Chris had to work or something and I had time.
I pulled up the cable menu and selected Marley and Me. I was dying for a puppy, and while I’d heard this one would make me cry, I also had room in the emotional budget those days to torture my heart. Let’s cry today, I thought as I pressed play.
At the end of the movie I sobbed as I washed up for Christmas Eve dinner and decided I didn’t need a dog. That glimpse into my potential future was absolutely too much. That is what I decided about 30 minutes before my future husband walked in the door and showed me a picture of the dog he’d just bought me for Christmas.
This post will be something of a confessional on two levels: One from the old me, who judged every sellout I saw thereafter, giving up their dogs after choosing to populate their house with more humans. (Maybe you should have thought of that before you got pregnant, KAREN.)
…and another from the lately me to her, who now understands, once more, the facts of life and why they exist. How situations change, and things just come to be what they are whether I’m willing to face the unfortunate truth or not.
It’s been almost a week since I said goodbye to my dog on the bottom left kennel of a fluorescent lighted animal hospital. An empathetic gal about my age in blue scrubs next to me holding the syringe we elected put into her instead of $10,000, a prayer, and a lot of potential extra attention (on the too-slim-to-our-liking chance she made it through).
Extra attention. Additional variables. $10,000.
The girl who begged for a puppy in 2010 had room, guys. She was far beyond ready to make herself responsible for another life. She had space in her brain and in the budget for the surprises a puppy promised.
And so ensued the bond we built through four-hour DIY haircuts on Saturday. That disgusting tape worm I saw her eject that one time. Choosing the most expensive spay option because she wasn’t just “any” dog, Jesus Christ. Taking her everywhere – and I mean everywhere. The states of inebriation she saw me through, my God. OMG, and that time she got diarrhea right after we shampoo’d the carpets (and later figured out it was because we shampoo’d the carpets). At one point I actually threw up cleaning up after her.
I loved every second of it, though. I was so happy to be her mom and help her through anything at all. There was nothing too disgusting she could put on me, I was here for it all.
When I became pregnant with Ace, she and I grew tighter than ever. Everyone I knew was still partying, so I clung to her for companionship on so many days and late nights. She went to bed with me when Chris did guy’s night on a party bus. She rode with me in the middle of the night to pick him up and get him home safely. Got up early with me, ran with me until I got too slow, and then walked with me through the rest. Trips to Safeway and trips to Ohio. The beach. House parties. If we were invited you knew we were asking: can we bring our dog?
She was always there and everyone loved her. We were three and she was our Harls.
I’ll never forget my first moment of total overwhelm after Anthony finally joined our family. He was a colicky baby, required a lot of us, and one afternoon after hours of crying and bouncing and soothing…I watched from across the room as Harley vomited on the carpet. It was the drawn out kind where her body is retching away for several moments first. All I could do was watch as I continued to help the baby. I remember sobbing as I knelt down to scrub the carpet a few minutes later, just defeated. My baby continuing to scream right next to me. This was a lot.
I remember giving up after trying a few times to walk with the two of them – baby in the stroller and her yanking my hands going after squirrels (she was horrible on a leash, God love her). One of these days she’s gonna flip the stroller I thought, I can’t keep doing this. Leisurely walks shouldn’t be this stressful, and eventually they ended for her.
Slowly we stopped taking her to Ohio. We wanted the baby to experience all the places, how could we shlep the dog too?
As he got older, Anthony played so cute with her, he really did. It became more manageable in time, but with Dylan came another layer of mental load. I believe God delivered me a sickness that winter as a reminder that she still needs me.
One afternoon on my second maternity leave I took Harley for a light 3-mile jog and suddenly she couldn’t make it. How could she not make it, she used to run five with me?
Where have I been?
I took her to the vet that day and for the next several months found myself authorizing ultrasounds and blood tests – thankfully we got a pretty good tax return that year. Breastfeeding my second baby in a private waiting room while the veterinarian collected his data.
We were sent home with three medications to keep track of and administer twice per day as I figured out how to go back to work, get the kids to their checkups, pack their bottles and lunches, the list goes on.
By the end of that year she recovered from the mysterious autoimmunity she’d picked up, but I don’t know that I ever figured out how to properly juggle the three of them. It was hard some days and easier on others, I think I just got used to never having a full handle on it. Used to the fact that mom life is pretty much that: one dependent’s well being after another to require my full attention until the next thing happens.
Harley figured out how to jump our fence fairly quickly after moving into our house and sprint alllll the yards before returning home. Sometimes we ran up and down our street cussing and calling for her. Many times Chris and I cussed each other over it. A couple times though, you guys, she ran away when Chris wasn’t home and I didn’t even notice until she showed back up on our car port, barking to come back in.
No kidding.
I joked that she clearly didn’t want to live with us anymore, but truly. The summer we hired a dog walker she didn’t do that. Three years ago from this point, she wouldn’t have done that. She’d be too busy basking in all the attention she was getting.
This was the reality and I had a lot of guilt about it on many days. How her life had changed, I thought, but never did I consider our life without her at all.
From the center of my universe to this, though? Running away and mom doesn’t even know? It wasn’t all that different from the hard call “Karen” was making to find a more attentive owner. I could pretend all I wanted, but in hindsight I was not immune to the reality of growing a family with a dog along for the ride. I just kept trying my best.
We were forced to make a hard decision last weekend for her and our family. Truthfully, with or without the $10,000 surgery, trying to save her didn’t make logical sense. It just didn’t. Still, I can’t help thinking back on what we used to be and wondering if I would have decided differently if I was the person I was five years ago. Wrong or right, smart or stupid…what would we have done?
This is the truth between mom and the dog in our house, and I’m telling it because so many people have factored my kids into the reason they support what we did. “You have kids now, you have to consider their future too.”
It’s true, as much as I refused that theory once upon a time. I was just a human mom trying to place a thousand priorities in a manageable order. Looking at a bill we cannot pay, and weighing it against the odds of the outcome.
All this is to give myself grace, not beat myself up (although I have done that this week). I couldn’t do it all, I couldn’t be super mom to everyone including the dog….as hard as I tried.
To top the whole story off, the condition our dog ultimately succumbed to was the same one damn Marley contracted at the end of that devastating movie. It was a total omen, and yet, I wouldn’t take a day of it back.
It felt far away but so familiar to be huddled around just the three of us for those final moments last weekend and I hope she felt it too. I hope she recalled me as I was when I was absolutely obsessed and she owned my entire Instagram feed.
That is the “me” she always deserved, and the one I hope she took to heaven with her at 1am last Sunday. 💗
