Painful Choices

The moment I first saw your face, I fell in love with you.  Looking off to the side, all I could see was your profile in the image, and although I looked at so many others, it was you I came back to.  I wanted you, only you.

A shy, timid little one year old when you first came to me.  Your very first experience after I carried you up the four flights of stairs was being pounced on by a much heavier, much older puss.  Midnight wanted to show you who was boss and I scolded him for it.  It was enough of a lesson for you that for the next decade you were scared of cats.  You put up with them, and tolerated them, but every time one wanted to curl up next to you, you’d freeze up and look at me with that look of, “Help!” not wanting to move in case you were beaten up again.

You wouldn’t eat the first day you came.. or the 2nd or the 3rd.  By the 4th day, I was able to convince you with turkey breast, and after that, you wanted to try everything, including fruits and vegetables; every single one of which you loved.

Your first big excursion, mum and I took you to the city, to the botanical gardens.  Although you enjoyed the experience, you seemed to have this fear that we were going to dump you there, and you were so overjoyed when we got home and you were still with us.

We would NEVER let you go.  You were my newest little baby, my treasure, my soul.

On the very first mother’s day, when mum took you for a walk for me, because my health stopped me from walking you myself, you were ambushed by a bigger dog and mauled.  A good chunk taken out of your inner leg.  It took us 3 days to find a vet that would look at you first before asking for money and letting us pay her off.  A good thing because you removed the stitches twice soon after surgery, costing me over a thousand dollars to have you put under thrice just to get the stitches back in!

The only way to stop you removing them, even with the medical collar was to put a onesie on you.  This was a blessing in disguise.  Before the onesie, you thought it was the funniest thing to pee on mum’s bed no matter how frequently we scolded you for it.  You soon learned that you didn’t like icky clothes and began asking to go out, a feat in itself… living up 4 flights of stairs, you refused to walk up and down them for the first 6 months living with us.  You fell in love with clothes after that experience and loved to have me dress you up.  Whenever I bought or made you a new outfit, you’d run out to the street and sit and wait for a passer by to say how cute you looked before you ran back in with a big smile on your face.

You quickly learned to love riding a mobility scooter when I first got one, and you thought it was the coolest thing.  Whenever we went to Parramatta park, your favourite fun thing to do was spinouts in the loose sand near the play area, watching as you send the sand flying in all directions.. and you loved the children’s slide also.  You’d continue to love both for the next few years till you were around 6 and lost interest in these childish activities.

You never wanted me to leave your sight, and when I did, you cried like a baby, and when I came back you told me off in your little baby talk and then tell me about every little thing that happened whilst I was away.

I had to teach you to growl because you’d let the cats eat your dinner, and it never failed to make me giggle because you growled like a human child trying to roll her Rs.

In those early years, I took you everywhere because I wanted nothing to scare you… remember the Chinese New Year?  When I took you to watch the fireworks?  I had to get a stranger to hold your leash so I could hold my ears, but you took it all in stride, watching the exploding fireworks with great excitement and a big grin on your face.

Then we went to that outdoor concert where I sat near the speakers just so you could get used to the sounds of the drum through the speakers.  After that, nothing phased you.  you could sit at the window watching the fiercest storms or listen to the fireworks in the neighbouring suburb and took it all in stride.

Over the years, you showed me what love really was.  How to show love, how to experience it.  You’d look at me so lovingly when I cradled you in my arms, your spirit even joined me in my dreams when I slept, you were always there, wherever my dreams took me.

When you were 8 you ruptured your cruciate ligament and cried the whole time you were at AWL fretting for me.  I had to leave you there for a week, taking you there when you got injured and you had to wait for the surgeon, and it broke my heart being away from you for so long.  When I called you every day, I could hear you crying for me on the phone and the staff said that you never stopped crying the whole time you were there.

You had the biggest smile when you came home.. an orange bandage where the I.V was on your front leg, and a naked back leg from the surgery that looked like it belonged more on a turkey ready for roasting.

I had to keep you in a playpen for a few weeks whilst you recovered to stop you acting like the puppy you still believed you were.

Do you remember when I submitted a story to PetRescue for their first anthology.  I titled it, “Happy Birthday Cleo”.  Your story was accepted and you made it into the book, so we were invited to the book launch in Leichhardt along with many other furkids that also made it into the book.

Even at 10, you still acted the puppy.

Even now, almost at 15, you get your puppy moments in the morning.  You try to spin out.  You try to race me down the hallway to the kitchen.  You try to dance around.  But your limited vision, and your forgetfulness of the layout of our home, and your aching aged body remind you that you’re not that puppy anymore.

We have had so many wonderful loving and happy years together, and it breaks my heart to see you now.  It’s not the looks.  Even with the Cushings and the balding skin and little ratty tail, and your whitened eyes with that bright spark gone.  Even with your forgetfulness and absent mindedness.. and even your little bloated tummy and clearly visible spine… you’re still my most beautiful little girl, my beautiful baby girl, the girl that for a long time had a muppet grin… my little muppet.

That little muppet who I could give a whole sausage to or a prawn chip or a wafer stick and say, “Hold on till I get the camera” and it might take me two minutes or 10, but you’d hold onto the food and not eat it till I took a photo with my camera…

What’s breaking my heart are those moments when I want to cuddle you, I want to pick you up and you cry out in pain.  Those moments where arthritis or old age gets the better of you, and my puppy in spirit reveals the frail old woman that you have become.

I cry for you every night because I don’t want to have to make THAT choice.  I don’t want to have to rob you of any life that you still may want.  I see it in you that you haven’t given up and if you had your choice, you’d try to live to 20 and beyond.  There is a spirit in you that still enjoys life even if your body can’t keep up.  You eagerly await your meds, and you nag me twice a day for them, and you LOVE your food and still look forward to every meal.  You’re still my living vacuum, although my “vacuum” does less and less rounds in the house of late.  I often catch you sleeping more and active less, and you don’t even seem to notice if I need to go out for whatever reason, although this doesn’t bother me.. Milly notices enough for the two of you, and she lets the neighbours know when I go out.

So this tear filled walk down memory lane is just that…  my beautiful baby girl… my beautiful senior baby girl.  So many memories.. enough to fill a book, and all my friends tell me I should write that book with all of your antics and adventures.  And perhaps one day I shall.

Your life, has changed me so much, and I know that I should let you go, and let you become the little angel that you deserve to be… that you already are.. that you always have been.  But I’m weak, and I can’t let go just yet.  I’m not ready… perhaps soon.