The 12 Days of HOLY SH*TMAS: Post #2

I have something to admit. As difficult as it is, I have to face up to it. I have a great love other than my husband! *gasp*

She came into my life long before he did. *fans face all lady-like with hand*

I've slept with her for so many years -

*faints*

Okay, okay. You got me. She literally sleeps with me. Not sexy sexy "sleeps" with me. It's about as risque as an old lady knitting, rockin' in her chair on a porch.

Maverick says, "Hi, Mama! Time for eating?"

Mav has been my baby since she was 8 weeks old. Which was a long time ago. She'll be 9 this year.

No matter how many ailments or health problems she gets, she just patiently puts up with me until my vet and I figure it out. The diagnosis list continues to grow as she ages. Epilepsy, hypothyroidism, ear infection after ear infection.

She still gets excited every single time she goes to the vet, all wags and licks, ears up and eyes wide, even though the past 2 years have been a steady stream of painful biopsies on a plethora of cysts and tumors that magically appear all over her body.

*Singing like The Black Eyed Peas*

"My bumps, my bumps, my lovely lady bumps"

Instead of being scared of what she knows is going to happen, she's thrilled to see our vet and his two techs. Every inch of her body says, "I LOVE YOU!" the second they enter the room.

I have to see her through everything because she's been at my side for every up and every down. She's seen me through losing people I love and she's loved, through my life threatening reaction to an antibiotic and the 3 months I then spent on super steroids and bedrest, through recurrent MRSA infections, through finding my husband and then moving us across several states to be with him.

She's tolerated every change, every twist, every turn in the road. Whether a walk in the park or day on the couch, she has spent her life at my side, always happy, always sure.

As the years passed, my not-so-keen-on-dogs parents and brother have realized that Mav is more than just some random pet. Still, I don't think they know what to say or what to think. It's not the life they'd pick for me, I'm sure. I think sometimes they think that without Mav, I'd be all footloose and fancy free, traveling the world or something. They've done their best not to dwell on her, neither discouraging nor encouraging her presence in my life. Letting it be was the best they could do.

Which is why when my birthday came around 2 years ago and they gave me this, I was really touched. And kind of shocked.  

A Weim Shirt! From my family!

This shirt was the first time I really felt like they were accepting and acknowledging what Mav means to me. I wear it all the time. At home. Because, as I remember my grandma saying when she picked a female Mav out of the litter of puppies, "The boys' stuff is all out for the world to see and it always bothered me" with all her lifetime of male Weimaraners. This shirt kind of demonstrates that a little too much for my tastes.

I didn't understand when we brought Mav home why my grams had stopped having dogs. She'd had them for so many years. All Weims. She simply told me it hurt too much. Once, about 20 years after her last Weim and a few years before I moved in with her, she said she saw someone driving around with a Weim in the backseat while she was driving out to get her hair done.

She skipped her set in stone weekly appointment and followed them around in her car for over an hour.

She was probably 70 something at the time. You have to picture it. A crazy little old lady, barely visible above the steering wheel of a giant, 4 door, green Chrysler, tailing some family all over South Bend, Indiana, because they happened to have a dog in the car. Because it was a Weim.

I, the girl who had never had a dog, thought that was insane.

Didn't take long for me after we got Mav for me to understand. She was my dog immediately.

Really, how did I ever have a chance? Look at that face.

I know whenever it is Mav's time, no matter how ready she is or I should be, I won't be ready. At the same time, I know that every day I have had with her will be worth what I go through when the day comes and she is gone. My husband and I had another Weim join our family a year after we got married. We had 2 years with her, and when she passed away suddenly and unexpectedly, it was devastating to me. I understood why my grams had stopped having Weims.

Because of Mav's health, the loss of our other dog, and my state of mind, my family started letting me bring Mav when the hubby and I would come and visit. There are not words for how this makes me feel.

I know they would prefer a no-Mav policy, but for me, they bought a slipcover for the couch and started saving plastic bags for dog clean up by the back door. They talk to her in a sing-song voice when she's in the room, smile at her, and pat her little (giant) head. They don't do this for her. They do this for me.

My folks have really showed me over the years what it means to be a part of a loving family. They've shown me what it is to be married and what it is to support and stand by the people you love.

Maybe they didn't plan on having a daughter like me.

One who has a Weim calendar.

In every room.

One who drinks out of a Weim mug while looking

at framed art prints of Weims.

One who's best days have come simply and without much fanfare.

At home, with my hubby, my kitties, my girls.

Maybe it was always only a matter of time

before I built my own family

with the human love of my life

and a menagerie of 4-legged children.

I know it's crazy for me to ache for the one that is gone and to spoil and dote on the one who is still here in the way that I do.

For whatever reason, my husband and my family continue to stand by me, even when I'm difficult, or lost, or sad. They hold me up and believe in me even when I don't believe in myself. And they accept that this girl will always come with a Weim. 

My family even reads this blog once in a while, and they are definitely not blog people. They read about my husband and I having our puzzle date. Then, they gave me this present for Christmas.

Oh God, it's a Weim puzzle!

I know, the Weim girl getting a Weim-related gift? What's so amazing about that? Just trust me on this one. Besides, it packs a double punch...

Oh, blasted puzzles! Always trying to challenge me! I will be a puzzle person! I will!

And the level of happy, warm, HOLY SH*TMAS feelings that ran through me when I opened this?

Nothing could have reminded me more that I am exactly who and exactly where I'm supposed to be, surrounded by the family I was meant to have by blood and by choice, in the place where home is more much more than a simple word. If that doesn't make one one cheerful to the point of using colorful language to describe a high holy day, then I don't know what ever could.