Catching Up

Earlier this week, I had lunch with a friend. We don't get together often, but when we do, we are always able to share our hearts. I told her about several things that I just have not been able to blog about. Things that have just really taken me some time to process before I could put words to them. With that said, I'm going to go back in time a bit and try to catch up. A while ago, I mentioned just a simple sentence about Spike dying. That event in my life was much bigger than one simple sentence, it just was all I could verbalize at the time. Spike came into our lives almost 14 years ago. I didn't want a dog, three kids presented plenty of demands on me without adding anything else. Carissa was determined to have a dog, and after much homework, we felt that a Yorkie would be the best fit for our family. Kathy drove with me on a Wednesday night to pick him up, put him in a gift bag, and have him sitting under the Christmas tree when Cary got home from church with the kids. He came into our lives during a very difficult time, a time when I wasn't sure we'd ever see the other side, and a time when smiles and laughter didn't come very often. I remember one day soon after he arrived when he took off running across the room and I laughed out loud. He looked more like a small bunny hopping than a puppy running. I've never forgotten that moment and how good it felt to laugh. He came to us for a reason, and the timing was perfect. As hard as I fought it, it wasn't long before Spike became my dog, and Carissa didn't have much to do with him. At the time she was kind enough to tell us that she had wanted a BIG dog, not a little one! Cary says that now that Spike is gone, I remember only the good. Maybe that's true. I remember the Saturday we were all headed to a wedding, all the kids were dressed and we were ready to go. We couldn't find Spike anywhere, and he always had to be shut up so he didn't tear up the house. We looked everywhere, and finally decided he had to have gotten out of the house, so we all took to the streets to search. After the Florida heat had taken its toll on us and we came back inside, we found he was shut up in the Lazyboy! There was the time when my wallet went missing out of my purse...with $500 cash in it. After we had given up all hope of finding it, two weeks later, it turned up under our bed. The whole wallet, $500 and all. And, of course, I had already gone and gotten new license! Another time we were out all over the neighborhood looking for him and came home to find him under the baby bed, hiding with a Snicker's bar sticking out the side of his mouth like a cigar. He LOVED Christmas. He knew when it was coming and he was more excited than any of the kids to unpack all the decorations and find the things with bells on them. He lived for Christmas Eve when we filled the stockings before going to bed and had to pry him away from guarding them. He always enjoyed his stocking more than the kids enjoyed theirs! He liked presents too. One year we went to church and when we got home we found that Spike had unwrapped a present of Cary's...chocolate mint truffles! They were GONE, leaving only the wrapping! And, I remember the times when Cary was gone so much and life wasn't always easy! Spike was always there for me and when I couldn't hide the tears anymore, he never left my side. We shared a lot of hard days! Every night he would get up on the bed to "cuddle" with me, and each morning he was there to start the day off with a little cuddle time. Only recently, as he was getting older and it was hard for him to jump off the bed, we would lift him off the bed onto the floor when cuddle time was over. There were several times when Cary would start to put him down before he was ready and he would growl at Cary for interrupting his time with his mama! It had become common conversation that when the time came, the family would have to bury me along with Spike. We were tight, adored each other. This story is too much for one sitting, so stay tuned, I'll continue. This picture is my all time favorite. It was taken at the lake house where we used to go with the college kids each year. He always got to go, and he never left my lap...where I stayed in the hammock! One of our guys took this picture in May of 2005. I always loved how he was looking up, with the wind blowing in his face.