The Best Medicine....

.....for grief is often in doing something good for someone who needs it. Rocky was a shelter rescue. When you walk into one of those places, it is hard not to want to take them all home. We found ourselves up and getting dressed and heading for the SPCA and the local shelter, yesterday. There was a void in this house that cried out for a dog. We wanted to honor Rocky by giving another furry, little guy or gal a real home rather than a cement-floor cage. We looked at several small dogs, but my heart went out to a skinny, little Rat Terrier, smaller than Rocky and with black markings and a full tail, who was timid but affectionate. While she and Rocky share some traits, since Rocky was a Rattie Mix, she is very much herself. So...welcome home, Dolly.

She is a little bundle of energy, alway on the go. She is supposedly afraid of men but she loves my hubby. She is underweight and skittish and very inquisitive and is going to take some work as far as training goes. "Sit" is a foreign concept to her and when I try to gently push her bum down on the floor, she cringes as if she fears I am going to hurt her. We are working on the trust thing, right now.



I had some loved ones ask if it weren't too soon for us to have another dog. We didn't have any illusions going that getting a new pup would take away our grief. We just knew we were the kind of people who had learned that they needed a dog in the home. Dolly isn't replacing Rocky. You can't replace one furbaby with another any more than you can replace one child with another. But, she is a little bit of a goof ball and she acutally had me roaring with laughter yesterday. We have a framed picture of Rocky sitting on a shelf and I felt like he was watching her antics and thinking, "Who is THIS bitch?"

I will continue to mourn Rocky, but we do have closure, and time will make the ache lessen. When I lost my two oldest children to adoption, I have to say that I rushed to have more. Just like a dogless home is empty, a mother without a child is also empty. I never stopped missing and wanting Sara and Jay, but the joy that Kerry and Sam gave me helped me know that love comes in an endless supply. They didn't replace their siblings taken for adoption, but they allowed me to be what I became when I first felt my oldest move in my womb...a mother. And I love them both dearly for who they are and have never faulted them for who they weren't. Dolly isn't Rocky, but that's OK. Dolly's a damn good doggie on her own merit.

No matter what, life goes on. Grieving is a part of life for the living. I wonder if I would have fared better had I, at least, been allowed to mourn the loss of my daughter and son in an overt manner? I have received so many condolences on Rocky's passing, but only a couple of people would acknowledge my pain over the loss of my children. Everyone else seemed uncomfortable with my grief...even my own family. I and many other mothers who had children taken for adoption can attest to the fact that supressed grief can really do some damage to the old psyche.

I found myself telling my little girl doggy that she was a "good boy," this morning. No, I still have a lot of hurt ahead of me for my Rocky. But I also have a sweet little lady to care for and that helps, immeasurably. She is finding her own place in my heart, just as my raised children did. That's the thing about love.

You usually don't run out and it seems to multiply in proportion to the need.