A fur-filled Update

Gosh, I need to do some catching up around here.  A lot has happened in the past few weeks and yet not changed much at the same time. You know how that goes…  My heart is still trying to heal, from the pain of loosing Nesta.  It’s still very surreal and hard to believe at times that he is gone.   It’s hard to explain how I feel most of the time.  But I am writing a letter to Nesta, soon to be here on his blog.  I am also still working on his life’s timeline with every memory I can remember.  But I have taken a hiatus from writing about him lately, and I am not sure why.  I think that sometimes it’s just easier to not deal with the emotions and pain.  But then some days I crave the feeling of those emotions, and so I write.   It’s a personal process I suppose.   I have this fear that If I don’t get it all out right away, then I will forget something.  I’m afraid the intensity of the pain will subside before I am finished writing about him and that will cause me to not say everything I want and need to say.  But these are all silly fears, I know.  And I also know that everything happens just as it should in due time.

I celebrated my birthday on Oct. 25th, and that would have been mine and Nesta’s 11th anniversary together.   I got him as a puppy  as a gift to myself on my 24th birthday;  he was irresistible and only 7 weeks old.  11 years was not long enough, yet it was long enough – to create this immense and lasting love that I could not have even begun to imagine.   Our souls were attached at hello, and throughout the following 11 years, we created a relationship that can never be replicated again.

Well anyway, meanwhile in other news……..

On Oct. 18th I was in Lexington, NC, visiting my best friend from College, Lindsay, who was home from California visiting her family.  Her family has always been a favorite of mine.  They live in a beautiful log cabin on 50+ acres and her mom has been breeding Bernese Mountain dogs as long as I have known her.  No puppies were there at the time I was visiting, but they still have about 8 of the dogs who live in kennels on the property.  I of course always want to say hello to the dogs, it had been so long since I had seen them.  Deborah, Lindsay’s mom, mentioned to me there was one 2.5 year old whom she would like to try and adopt out.  Of course, I perked up because I had wanted one of her dogs since college, but then Nesta came into my life, and that had been laid to to the side.  This ‘extra’ 2.5 year old female had not been used to breed nor had been sold, because she has a defect in her eyes.  Her third eyelid shows all the time.   And so I called Kyle to get approval that I was thinking about spontaneously bringing home a new dog, and that she was big!

Kyle and I had been talking about dogs a lot lately, and we knew it was pending that we would soon be getting a puppy from his friend who accidentally had puppies born on his land.  We had talked about getting two dogs, as we have been blown away lately at all the dogs who need homes around here.  If we had a larger house, we would probably even try to fit 3 dogs, or for heaven’s sake, maybe even 4!  So despite all the talk of adopting one from a rescue, he quickly agreed for me to bring home this loving and beautiful adolescent Bernese Mountain dog.  So I brought her home and we fell in love quite quickly and named her Delilah.  Ten days later, we brought home the new 8 week old puppy.  The puppy is a mix bread – his mom is full Rottweiller and his dad is a mix who knows what!  It took us days to figure out a name for him and finally landed on Woody or Batman, or Woody Batman.  We are calling him Woody.  He is adorable, and really full of himself.  He and Delilah are getting along just fine, although there is an 80 pound weight difference right now.   We are all one happy pack, and I’m glad to feel happiness around dogs again.  Delilah has especially taken a liking to me; she is the sweetest thing!

And so it goes, life moves ever onward.  The love I have in my heart for Nesta will never be replaced.  And I already feel that my love for these dogs is heading down a different kind of path than my love for Nesta did.  And I guess that is okay.  I want my Nesta back, and I would do anything in my power to get him back if I knew I could.  But like my Dad has mentioned to me several times – the elasticity of the heart.   My heart is like elastic, it can hold infinite amounts of love, all different shapes, sizes and kinds of love at that!  So I chalk it up for whatever that’s worth and move on with my life; holding Nesta in my heart throughout eternity.