Most people that speak with me understand I seldom go into any great detail about my offline life. A few things here and there but for quite a while now I've been dealing with a lot of emotional strains that honestly I failed to cope with well. But that's life. Especially in the last few months, it's been the roughest but yesterday marked the end of a story I wanted to share with you.
My Mother used to rescue a lot of animals. Find them homes, others she would take care of herself. One day in 1994 in California, we sustained a rather massive and destructive Earthquake. She lived in Pacoima at the time and it was hit pretty hard compared to where I lived. Luckily, mom was visiting us the night it hit and was using the guest room so she was a lot safer than she would have been at her home. It wasn't easy getting home for her of course, but eventually she did and discovered quite the mess. Next door to her place, was a now abandoned home because the structure was no longer safe to live in.
A Feral dog had some puppies under the abandoned building and she was struggling to keep those puppies alive. She was in the process of starving to death to keep her puppies alive and putting in everything for them. She was also attacked by humans all the time, no real surprise there, since she was stealing food when she could. Well, mom was trying to offer some help but there was a distinct lack of trust. Eventually the puppies were befriended a bit but the mother dog always kept a distance and just watched.
Well the time came for my Mother to move into a new place and upon doing her last walk through the house to make sure nothing was forgotten, she stepped outside and looked at her van to a sight that forever changed her life. The puppies were in her van, and the mother dog was sitting outside the van waiting. They made eye contact, just stared at each other for a bit, and then the mom dog jumped into the van as well. From then on, mom rescued animals whenever she could. Place them in homes, she kept most of the puppies there. The mother was half coyote, not sure what the other half was. Kept the female puppies, placed the male ones...
Over the years it was her calling, she saved a lot of dogs, kept her family. Coyo (the Mother), Choco, Cinnamon, then added Menusa, then Pildorita, Cujo, eventually she rescued a rooster she named Captain Hook and then saved some chickens so he wouldn't be lonely. Eventually she rescued a dog named Daisy whom grew on me despite me wanting no more dogs.
At that point, I was actually living with her and she had moved to a safer city so it wasn't too hard for Daisy and me to connect. : / So when I moved out on my own, I kept the Daisy.
Fast forward, my Mother was Diagnosed with Cancer of the Bone marrow. She broke her Femur which is quite difficult to do normally but her cancer was weakening her bones. So I spent most of my time taking care of her, going to work, taking care of her. Watching her deteriorate as one does with Cancer. Because she had to focus on the cancer instead of the leg, even though she responded well to treatment her leg was not allowed to heal so properly. So she needed help with a lot of things for that too.
I Loved my Mother very much, and it was very depressing for me to watch her deteriorate the way she did and I started to spiral into a depression. When she decided it was time to stop fighting, we were given a time frame that she was likely to die on average days, maybe weeks. So true to form, she went many many months. She was always beating the odds on everything throughout the fight. The only dogs to survive at this point was Daisy, and Rocky. Rocky passed not too long after this.
So after my Mothers funeral, I sat down at my computer and discovered I have a LOT of free time all of the sudden. I was rather lost with myself at that point. Just kind of existed, going through a lot of motions about things I wasn't emotionally invested in. I left California because the depression was getting to a point I could not handle it anymore. EVERYTHING reminding me of Mom. I had a bad break up at the time, and it did not help that after I got a job that was literally behind a hotel we built some our memories in. The combination was of that and everything reminding me of mom, I just said, "EXIT TIME!" so moved to Arizona.
Daisy was not expected to survive to the point she would make it to Move day. But she did, and survived about 6 months or so. But, I'd been watching her deteriorate for a long time now due to age. She was the last surviving dog from all the ones my Mother had saved. She was the last one. My thoughts were mainly on her and trying to make sure she wasn't suffering.
In the end, she got really bad especially in the past few months. I'll spare you the details, but in the end she was starting to suffer very badly. I had taken her to the vet and she was alive enough that we felt the best idea was to try a few things, and monitor her but three days ago, as bad as she was, she took a turn that was just devastating to watch. It was also reminding me of my Mother constantly. Emotionally I haven't been handling this well at all, and honestly I lash out at people and things in all honesty did not deserve it.
Really Loved Daisy and I miss her greatly, and her passing yesterday marked the end of the Chapter my Mother started when I was little. When I got home after work, and she was not there, I found myself feeling unexpected emotions. Apart from the expected ones I find... Relief? Need to clean my room, move things that were Daisys out, I used to place boxes around so she could climb on them, to climb onto my bed. She had a box she liked using as a dog bed, even though she had a dog bed she enjoyed using too... But it's time to make more space in here now, make it like a human room. Clean up... It's like, I'm looking forward in a way I haven't for a long time.
A wave of pure exhaustion took me and I collapsed into bed. While it was hard at first to fall asleep, and had a few up and down moments, I finally fell asleep solidly and slept longer than I have in many months. As I type this I'm experiencing the symptoms of sleep deprivation when you finally get some sleep again.
Sure miss her though. Had her around, 15 years or so. Hard to say exactly. No idea how old she was when I first met her. It's a good run. Amidst the tears and memories as I mourn the loss of a partner in life through the ups and downs, I've also lost the constant reminder of my Mother and what I watched there too. I am no longer certain what to expect now, but I realized last night I felt another emotion I haven't truly felt in a long time and had forgotten existed. I'm not even certain this is the right word for it... Hope.
-CM
