On Saturday night, I won a major award. (Bonus points for anyone who gets the movie reference.) I was honored with a Muse Medallion from the Cat Writers’ Association for my poem “Cat Dreams” that appeared in Cat Talk, the official magazine of the Cat Fanciers’ Association. But wait! There’s more. In February of this year, I received a Maxwell Medallion from the Dog Writers Association of America at their annual banquet for an essay about my dog Pasha, entitled “What’s Wrong WIth Your Dog” that was included in the book Second-Chance Dogs: True Stories of the Dogs We Rescue and the Dogs Who Rescue Us by Callie Smith Grant. I received another Maxwell (OMG, yes, two in one night!) for my poem Haiku by Dog: Yearning, which featured a photo of Tucker looking sadly out our front door. And more: In July, one of my stories (about Tucker and Calvin) was included in an official Chicken Soup for the Soul anthology, The Magic of Cats. It has always been a dream of mine to be a Chicken Soup writer.
Which is why it’s just about perfect that yet another essay (about how Tucker came to live with us) is in the chapter on love come true in a second Chicken Soup for the Soul book, Listen to Your Dreams, which goes on sale today. Still not done: Two of my stories are included in an additional book by Callie Smith Grant that’s due out in September, this time about our feline friends, entitled Second-Chance Cats. And of course, there’s Halley. Sweet. Silly. Brilliant Halley. Obsessed. Yappy. Too-smart-for-her-own-good Halley. Our new lab / Border Collie / terrier puppy who exemplifies both the best and the worst personality traits of her heritage. Sometimes simultaneously. Awards. Stories published. Dreams achieved. The adoption of a puppy. I should be celebrating. For heck’s sake (this is a family friendly blog), I should be posting about these successes. But I haven’t. I’ve been quiet online. Almost complete radio silence since Tucker’s death. Only two blog posts and sporadic social media in more than a year. I am truly thrilled about my awards. The books. The new addition to our family. But I didn’t write about any of it here (other two stories about Halley.) Because I just couldn’t. I. Just. Could. Not. We’ve all loved and lost. And I know you never get over a loss; you just learn how to live with it. The hard parts are the milestones. The first fill-in-the-blank without your loved one. The first walk with only two dogs. The first fall with nobody to chase a ball through the leaves. The first snow without Tucker charging through it. But those events are kind of predictable; I could mostly prepare for them. What’s worse are the moments that blindsided me with an expected punch of grief that left me breathless, that turned me into a puddle on the floor, wanting so desperately what the universe has told me I cannot have. The squeaky ball discovered, forgotten in a corner. The first time I called the names of three dogs by habit. The email from the company that I bought special food from for Tucker when he got sick, reminding me about the upcoming order that I now had to cancel. I knew to expect all of those things. I’ve lost pets before. And people. I learned to navigate a life that didn’t include them. But to open up my computer and confront my blog. That. Was. So. Painful. Tucker is everywhere. He’s on page after page, text after text, haiku after haiku. He’s in my photo archive, my history, my data. He’s in my drafts—all the posts with him in it that didn’t go live because we ran out of time. I could navigate my home, my neighborhood, my physical space where the Tucker-shaped hole exists. But Tucker is woven through my blog like he is woven through my heart. There is no route through my online existence that doesn’t take me through a minefield of memories. That doesn’t require painful decisions, like whether I post the stories and poems that feature him, or leave them as literal ghosts in my machine. That doesn’t require changes to a place that is in some ways frozen in a moment, like leaving a room just the way it was when someone was still with us, because to make any changes is to move on. And I’m not sure if my funny bone, severely injured when I lost Tucker, has healed enough for me to be humorous again, writing amusing haiku, or silly texts. Writing has always been my therapy, my medicine, my antidote against Agnes, my depression. But I couldn’t swallow this bitter pill; it was too big, too overpowering, too much looking straight at my loss screaming at me from my computer. Too much facing it. Too much living with it. Too much being forced to accept it. The thing I miss most about Tucker is his joy. Jasper and Lilah—and even little Halley now—are happy dogs. They enjoy their lives. They’re sweet and playful and amusing. But Tucker was the most joyful creature I’ve ever had the pleasure to know. I never tired of throwing his ball, because the joy he took in the game was so contagious, so infectious (if you’ll excuse the untimely word choice) that it fed my soul. I thrived on it. I craved it. I miss it so damn much. But I’ve also heard from fans that my writing brought them joy. That the tales and poems and comical musings of my dogs and cats made them smile, or giggle or outright LOL. It’s been just over a year since Tucker died. And I think it’s time for me to take a deep breath, and to come back. To start writing here again. To bring joy to others, maybe not quite as intensely as Tucker did for me, but to settle for a snicker or a grin. Maybe even to find some solace in my memories of him, in a place rife with his presence. I’m back. At least I hope so. I hope you’ll accompany me on this journey. I hope you’ll understand when I stumble or hide or stall. I hope I’ll heal along the way. And I really hope I can spread some joy. The post Winning Awards. Getting Published. And yet… appeared first on Life with Dogs and Cats.
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