"art is a simulation of life"
Getting Back to Reality
The month of April was in short extremely difficult. As a recent graduate (this past January), I've been seeking job opportunities that would work with my living circumstances. Last October, we were given a special gift by my sister (and by we, I mean my husband and I). A friend from her job said she had two baby puppies that needed a home. At first we asked if we could take in one puppy because we already had an 8 year old Chihuahua named Gigi.
our precious Gigi a.k.a Gigams :)
Unfortunately, the owner wanted to keep these two sisters together so weren't able to make a deal initially. That was until hurricane Sandy came along, which changed everything.
One quiet afternoon while many of my neighbors were still picking fallen branches off of their lawns, the doorbell rang. It was my sister. As she came in, I noticed she had a black bag in her arms. At first it looked like a normal duffle bag, but I noticed something moving inside. She then asked me if I was interested in seeing her new purse. "What do you mean?" I asked with great anticipation and excitement.
Suddenly I heard this precious squeaking and shuffling from within. I knew immediately what she had in the bag but I wasn't prepared for the instant love that was about to occur. Inside the duffle/doggie bag, were the two most adorable baby pups I had ever laid eyes on in my life (as if they were Gigi's baby sisters). One was a shaggy white fluffy puff and the other the most tiny version of Gigi.. I could only gasp with delight and awe. She told me the owner had lost power in her home and there was no heat to keep the puppies warm. So she gave them to my sister, although she had already decided to give them to someone else, due to the extreme emergency (and the fact the other person wasn't ready to take them either). So here in my hands were the two most beautiful baby puppies I had ever held.
INSTANT LOVE
no turning back now.. (Lilly & Lilahbelle)
A New World
Quickly, I learned what motherhood of twin puppies did to my work life, married life and my school work. Oh how sweet a moment of silence was then, if it ever came. The holidays were immediately upon us and just a month to go prior to graduation. Everything seemed to be flowing through a filter of exhaustion and wee-wee pads. Yes these two (seen above) are sisters. Shih tzu/Chihuahua babies with the same coloring, and completely opposite temperaments. First there was Lilly, my fuzzy puff, a ball of love and the first to bark and declare she was boss. Then Lilah (nicknamed Lilahbelle for her necklace bell that incessantly rang), the most adorable and indescribable droplet of love that came down from heaven to grace us. They immediately got along with Gigi. It was "instant family" as they say.
As our two little girls grew quickly, Lilly (our fuzzy), grew much faster as she was Shih tzu dominant. Lilah remained tiny in comparison but just as feisty and tough (mama was very proud of that). I'll never forget the first day Lilahbelle barked, I thought my heart was going to burst from the cuteness of it. She sounded like a tiny duck that had gotten loose on a farm or something. It was just unbelievably sweet to hear.
Just when I was gearing up for graduation in mid January, dealing with lots and lots of puppy gifts here and there, the first event occurred that would spark the beginning of a sad series of events leading to the loss of my tiny baby Belle. In short, Lilly was now much larger and while they spent every waking moment together up to this point, I noticed Lilah had fainted or was having some kind of episode while Lilly was basically pouncing on her. I thought she killed her sister and I was overwhelmed with terror. After sweeping Lilahbelle into my arms, feeling her limp and lifeless body, I said a small prayer begging God to bring her back. In the same moment, I noticed her little eyes opened and she looked up at me with the sweetest little face as if nothing had happened. Our world suddenly turned in a completely new direction after that moment.
Too Much
To summarize the months of January through April, we spent this period visiting our veterinarian specialists (five all together) trying to preserve and save Lilah's life. She was diagnosed with a severe heart murmur on both sides of her tiny, precious heart. My husband and I spent every waking moment caring for our girls during this difficult period. Lilly kept growing and Lilah remained half her size (although she grew to a very proud 4 and a half pounds). With the murmur, we learned that Lilah's heart would fill with too much blood because she had a very small valve that was making it difficult for the blood to escape into her body (hence the fainting that occurred regularly if excited). The second murmur (or blood leakage) occurred because of the great pressure on the right side of her heart. So, you can imagine, any energetic contact with her playful sister was now forbidden by our veterinarians in order to keep her heart as pressure free as possible. This meant no doorbells, no surprises, no loud noises of any kind including excitable baby talk (which people typically did when they saw her). You can imagine anything that would take a puppy from happy to excited, well those days were done. The goal was to get her large enough for surgery. When and if possible, the doctors at Oradell New Jersey's Animal Hospital were going to try increasing the blood flow in her valve with an extremely delicate surgery. We had until the end of April when they decided she was now big enough for the procedure. If we hadn't attempted the surgery, she could have gone at any time suddenly or slowly. We had no other option really.
always looking up from her bed to see if mommy was near..
At the same time, it seemed "friends" were not being the understanding people my husband and I had hoped they would be. Having Lilly corralled in her own area and Gigi in another, while Lilah was constantly being carried to avoid interaction didn't look "fair" to some people. When a close friend offered to "help" with Lilly, we were thrilled. Our goal was to breathe a little, sleep a little and know what it was like to see our families again. Life basically consisted of being a 24-hour guardian so we were seeking a temporary solution for Lilly (who was the most stress on Lilah). Somehow this friend thought were were being cruel and "mean" to Lilly we discovered shortly after. While they offered to help us, they turned around and made us look like cruel pet owners who were selfishly seeking to dump one of our dogs on someone else because we didn't care about her (all unbelievably untrue and unbearable to imagine at the time). There was another friend who didn't seem to realize the extent of our pain one fine day during the Easter holiday. Out of the blue, someone dear to me turned on a dime with hard words that felt like I had committed a crime for requesting some clarity on a touchy subject. I simply had no time for this and my days were running out fast (I feared). Who wants to quibble about words and feelings when their baby is dying? Who wants to be judged by someone who hasn't walked in their shoes? NO ONE. It was more than I could stand and I gladly let those doors close to become stronger. Thankfully my parents came through and took on Lilly for the remaining weeks leading up to surgery.
A Difficult Farewell & A Few Weeks of Love
April was a month filled with hope, expectation of miracles, and insurmountable love. The pain of losing close friends and their relatives was behind us. All that mattered was keeping our babies safe and healthy. During that period other friends and family stepped up to the plate and basically hit home runs, knocking the painful broken ties out of our minds. We spent the month with Gigi and Lilahbelle, working hard to give Lilah as much quality of life with her sister Gigi as possible. They were not allowed on the floor together because they would obviously run and play too much, so this was extremely limited. Otherwise, Lilah and Gigi spent many happy days playing on the bed which they both loved to chew sticks on or sleep together. I didn't leave my house from March to the end of April. But there were countless beautiful moments and our little baby Belle developed into quite a character those last months. I never knew such a unique puppy could exist. Her face spoke volumes of her love for us and her maturity began to show when she would choose to be a good girl and stick to her training. She grew up so quickly, it was a true gift from above to behold.
happy as always with those eyes that smiled.. Lilah loved and lived joyfully..
Our Last Day Together
There isn't much I'd like to say about this day but I will say this much about it and the day prior. Lilah discovered squirrels the day before surgery. I had hoped and prayed she would see the squirrel who loved to run past my office window along the fence (before she went in for surgery that is). My fear was that I would always wonder for the rest of my life how she would have reacted if something went wrong during surgery. I got my wish the day before and Lilah saw Mr.Squirrel run past our window (she loved to sleep on her pink pillow on the corner of my desk facing the window). Instead of reacting like I thought she would, she just sat with her legs crossed watching him do his little dance on our fence, shaking his tail and stopping to glance her way. She was a big girl now and she wasn't about to act silly over a smaller fuzzy creature she didn't know about. Needless to say, I was highly impressed with my big girl. The morning of surgery, for the very first time in her life, she also decided it was perfectly fine for mommy to walk out of the bedroom and not follow her out. Instead she stayed on the bed with daddy (my smiling husband), who was also quite impressed with how mature she was acting. All the while deep down, I felt this was a sign. As happy as her maturity made me, I had received every wish to see her grow up before her surgery. It was all so perfect, I just knew in my heart we weren't going to have her long.
That day was to date the most pain I've ever experienced in my life. We were given good news that she made it through surgery only to be called five minutes later after we left the hospital parking lot to be told she was gone. There are no words.
Faith, Hope, Love with Loyal Friends and Family
I can't say much about the end of April or the month of May. All I can say is that my faith was tested and it passed the test. Today Lilly is still with my parents, we love and miss her but aren't quite ready to bring her home (our hearts literally ache when we see her). My husband and I still have our ever-loving Gigi to care for while we've been recuperating. In so many ways, we've been through hell and back but we survived it and came out stronger than ever. Carrying Lilahbelle every single day for four months had a profound effect on my psyche. I felt like I carried a child, watched her grow up and witnessed her pass on. I don't know if anyone can relate and I'm not sure I'll ever find anyone that can. I'm ok with that because my husband and I experienced the same degree of loss. Lilah and our other two are our babies. Pets aren't always just "pets" to some.
When the tree outside my office window came into bloom this year, it bloomed pink for the very first time in 9 years. You may not think that matters much, but to us, it was a sign our little one was happy and playing under a pink tree somewhere else (for the eternally minded, heaven).
I hope this revealing blog doesn't upset anyone reading it. My hope was to share our experience for the sake of reaching out to another person with a similar story, and simply to explain where I've been and what we endured (so many details left out too). We have a strong faith in God, my husband and I. Perhaps someone can read this and find they relate. Knowing I wasn't alone during that period was essential to the beginning of the healing process for me. If in anyway, this helps someone by allowing them to relate, I'm glad. Otherwise, I appreciate the ability to share my thoughts on a blog. In times like these where we wear our emotions on our status bars, I felt I could share our story and place a bit of my heart on the page. This is our life, and Lilah was a tremendous part of it for us. Moving forward with a blog would seem dishonest if I didn't include the person behind the writer/artist.
Thank you for listening and if you happen to be someone who wasn't there for us during this time, the past is forgiven and forgotten. All we want is love and respect for Lilah's memory.
Slowly, the art begins again..
Please check out my Made With Paper Blog (a visual walk through of imagery during these months sketched on my iPad). I plan to use it for inspiration from now on.
~ Thank you for reading, .. Mina
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