My Social Media-less Life

This week, I’m back with some dogs I watched back in September. Their people usually go out of town twice a year to see grandkids, so I can’t fault them for that.

Plus, they’re one of the Exceptions to The Directive.

Anyway, I really only brought them up because of something else I was thinking about that was brought to my memory today: my dad.

See, someone asked me how old the girl in the picture was because we (really my mom because I was sick with a fever yesterday and didn’t want to be near anyone until I’ve been fever-free for a day) took Ellie to the vet for an inflamed knee.

Turns out it’s probably just advanced arthritis, but that’s beside the point.

The thing about adoptions is that if you don’t get the dogs when they’re puppies, no one really knows how old they are. And the same is true of Ellie.

Her people got her as an adult and she had had a few litters of puppies by then. They got her fixed as soon as they could since they did not want to have more puppies of course.

So fast forward to the day my dad died. After my mom went to the police station (apparently that’s standard with a suicide when others are in the house), she went straight to Ellie’s people’s house in Junction City (Ellie’s mom was my mom’s pastor at the time).

When my brother, sister-in-law and I drove from Kansas City that day, I remember we stopped at mom’s pastor’s house. I remember very little about those first 48 hours, but I do remember Ellie. She’s always been obsessed with Kongs, and that day was no different.

I know there was another dog there even and I think the dog was brown, but I don’t remember anything else about the other dog… and sometimes I wonder if I only remember Ellie because I know of her now… but I don’t think that’s how that works. At least not for me.

We didn’t stay at “pastor’s” house for very long that night and the next time I “met” Ellie was in 2017 when I first watched her and her pack for the first time after they all moved to Kansas City. There was a different brown dog with her and a little old stray dog by then, but Ellie was and has been the constant in this house for as long as I can remember.

The fact that she’s gotten older and started having “old dog problems” has been a little harder on me than I think I expected it to. Especially because Ellie is not technically family…

But she is a part of my story.

Some things come and go in your life and others stick with you forever whether you want them to or not. Both the good and the bad.

Ellie has just been one of those things that’s stuck with me over the past 8 years and I’m grateful that her constant presence and overall joy for life has been there for me when I needed it the most.

That doesn’t make her getting older any easier, but it makes for some good memories elsewhere.

And also her fun little obsession with Kongs reminds me that it’s ok to have at least one good obsession in life and not to take yourself too seriously in between. 😉