Saturday, October 22, 2011

Dear Little Gidget,

I miss you.  Everyone misses you so much.  You were always so tiny, weighing only 6 lbs in the healthiest time of your life, yet without you around the house is so empty.  I miss everything about you.  I miss my best cuddle buddy!  It's hard to look at your cute green blanket that you loved to lay with, whoever was using that blanket was going to be your cuddle buddy for the night.  I miss when you would play ball, and play tug of war with me, even though it feels like a lifetime since you had been strong enough to do either of those.  You were the best mother, and grandmother- supplying the entire extended family with generations of poodles!  Yet, I think you were loved the best out of all of them.  I love the way anyone who would meet you would ask us if they could take you home because everyone instantly loved you.  You were the one that convinced my Oma AND my Papa that maybe getting a dog wasn't a bad idea, especially if the dog came from you.  I keep expecting you to come around.  I've never lost anyone close to me before, so dealing with this is all new to me.  I keep coming home at night and tip toeing because I don't want to wake you up so that you whine all night, but then I remember you're not there anymore.  I keep looking for you when I sit on the couch so that I can put my hand down so you can push your head against it to climb up on the couch with me.  And I especially keep listening for the jingle your tags on your collar would make every time you walked.  I miss you baby girl.

What is it like in heaven?  You're the kind of dog that has the same kind of loving heart Jesus did.  I wouldn't be surprised if He is the one throwing the ball around for you right now.  I hope you get to keep playing ball and never tire out so you can play all day!  I hope you get to eat all the food we tried to get you to eat when you were sick because I know you would have killed to eat that stuff when you were healthy.  I hope you are taking care of family and friends that are there already, and that they are taking care of you.  I hope you found a new cuddly green blanket and that you are saving me a cuddle spot in bed someday again, as long as you learn to share the pillow this time.  I am sorry if bringing Koda around brought more stress on you.  You were so good at tolerating a hyper 6 month old puppy who was three times your size.  But then again, you were always good at tolerating everything.  Thank you for letting me cuddle with you for a few hours the morning before you died.  We hadn't gotten to spend much time together because of my busy life, but I'm glad that day we were able to spend some good old time cuddling.  I'm glad I kissed you and told you I loved you when I left the house the hour before you died.  I would have regretted not saying goodbye forever.  I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you in your dying moment, but I'm glad that a good majority of your close family who loves you was there by your side as you went back to heaven.  I'm glad you lived a wonderful long life and was one of the lucky ones who got to die peacefully at home with your family.  I'm sorry I didn't have the strength to see you after you had passed, I was afraid that was how I would always remember seeing you.  Know now though, that I don't remember you as the sick, weak, frail dog.  I see you as the cute puppy I picked up and put in my plastic shopping cart as a 5 year old girl.  I love you always and will always miss you terribly.  There is no one in the world who will understand the loss I feel by not having you here.  We didn't lose a pet, we lost a family member.  Save a spot for me in heaven and be one of the first one to greet me there when it is my turn.  I love you always Gidget, you will always be my baby girl!!

Gidget
July 23 1995 - October 20, 2011






I love you.
I miss you.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Change

Change is so hard to get used to.  I never really understood those certain people that have an actual change-phobia because most of the time, change usually brings about something positive.  At least for me that's the way it's usually gone.  So many changes I've dealt with were such happy times for me.  Like graduating high school, starting nursing school, living on my own, getting my cute Koda... the list goes on.  All of these things were huge changes that drastically effected the rest of my life.  And they have all been such wonderful moments in my life that has helped define who I am today.

However, lately not all changes for me have been so wonderful though.  For instance, one big one was JD leaving on his mission.  Up until that point, he and I were together every minute of our every day.  He was my everything.  And I had to go from knowing everything about him, being with him daily, and talking to him every minute to not seeing him at all for two years, not ever knowing what is going on with him, and hardly getting to talk at all.. at best, through letters.  It was a huge change, a change that was probably one of the hardest ones I've been through.  Not every relationship gets put through a trial like that one.  And not many relationships can survive something like that.  As for JD and I's relationship, I don't know where we stand in that aspect because I had another life change while he was gone.  I met someone else and fell in love.  

Meeting Cody has been such a bitter sweet change for me.  He has been so wonderful and has treated me the way every girl wants to be treated.  He brings me flowers way more than he should.  He spoils me at every chance he can get.  He was raised by a house full of women, so he definitely knows how to treat a woman.  My favorite thing to watch is when he plays with his niece.  Even though he didn't have a dad to grow up with and teach him how to be the right kind of father, I know someday he will be the best father there is just by watching the way he is with his niece. He is by far my best friend on the planet, we laugh at everything together! He makes me so happy, I feel like a little kid again when I am with him because we just enjoy each other so much.  I fell in love with Cody so hard and so fast that I don't even know when he had the time or strength to catch me, but he did.  The reason the change he brought into my life by meeting me was a bitter sweet one is because while everything is so perfect with Cody, I knew that that meant it couldn't also be perfect with JD in two years.  I knew that falling for someone like I did for Cody was going to make everything so much more difficult.  

You blink, and two years goes by.  You wouldn't believe it at the beginning, everyone always told me two years flies by and I thought they were all crazy.  But they were right.  I wish I had more time than I do now before another huge change hits.  JD comes home from his mission in three weeks.  I don't know when or how this happened, and I don't know how to be ready for it.  What do you do in a situation like mine?  What happens when the boy you loved your whole life leaves so suddenly it breaks your heart completely.  Then you take a chance on one brave person who puts up with more ridicule, glares, snide remarks, gossip, and pure hatred that anyone should ever have to be put through just to be near you, and through it all you fall in love.  Then, the boy you loved your entire life returns to you, this time a man.  That's a situation I do not know how to handle or what to do with.  I don't know how anyone could handle something like that.

Everyone constantly asks, "What are you going to do when JD comes home?"  I do not have an answer for this question.  Am I thrilled and excited and so happy to see JD in three weeks?  Absolutely.  However, am I totally and completely freaked out, and try not to cry from being so scared scared about it on a daily basis?  Yep.  I don't have any more answers than the next person.  I know this is going to be probably one of the hardest times in my life.  I know that people are going to get hurt badly, let alone I will hurt regardless of what happens.  I also know that I and so many others make this into such a bigger deal than it needs to be.  So what am I going to do?  What is my plan?  Nothing.  That's all.  Just nothing.  Except pray.  And try not to put so much stress on myself about it that I explode.  Keyword = try.  I am young.  I have time to figure my life out and am in no rush to find a quick answer to anything.  When it comes, it comes and I will know.  But for now, I will continue to live my life the way I am, be thrilled to see JD again finally after two years, and continue my wonderful relationship with Cody.  Things have a way of working themselves out.  One thing I learned at my first clinical rotation for nursing school from a cute lady who was born in 1914... "A watched pot never boils."  Once I stop expecting I will know exactly what to do, that's when I will finally figure it out.