ohbloodyhell8

If you had asked me two weeks ago how much I would miss my dog, I would have said a lot.  Ask me today and I cannot express how much I miss Brigs, though I’m apparently going to try in this post.  This house feels so very empty without that big yellow dog.  I think I was trying to fool myself that it wouldn’t be that hard because he hadn’t been upstairs for a year.  But even being downstairs, his presence was felt everywhere.  I still see him sprawled out on the family room floor.  I still hear his his metal collar clanging with his dog tags.  I still hear him.  And I have wept like a big ol’ baby, huge wailing sobs.  Not around my sons since I think it would scare them, it’s startled me a few times.

Brigadoon carried a lot of weight.  And I don’t just mean on his body.  I had a lot of emotional history attached to him.  I got Brigs while married to my ex-husband.  It was toward the end of the marriage, I just didn’t know how close to the end when we went to pick him out.  The puppy was next in a series of steps-married? Check.  House?  Check.  Yellow lab?  Check.  My ex even had the name Brigs picked out before we found a breeder.  Had to be a yellow lab and had to be a male.  I had no choice in the type of dog.  This had all been decided by my ex before we were even married, before dating for that matter.  He had set a goal at some point of having a male yellow lab when he was married and had a house.  I did get to participate in selecting the dog and we picked Brigs.

Brigs was positively adorable as a puppy.  Very sweet, very even-tempered.  I got a bunch of books and worked with him every day to train him.  This was not supported and I had an uphill battle ahead of me.  There were a lot of things that happened after we got the dog that shined a light on the major problems we were having.  Until it was more than just us, I hadn’t seen them.  The breaking point happened when I came home one day to find Brigs soaking wet in his crate and my ex watching television with a scowl on his face.  It seems that Brigs played in some puddles in the backyard (water dog) and got muddy.  My ex tried to rinse him off with the hose which the puppy interpreted as play.  My ex lost his temper with Brigs, hit him with the hose, and eventually stuck him in the crate.  The look on Brigs’ face when I had gotten home was so sad.   An argument between the ex and I then happened.

On so many levels I owed this dog so much.  My ex and I had been discussing children by this point and seeing the reaction about a muddy dog made me wonder what type of reaction would happen about a muddy kid, which even then I knew was bound to be a regular occurrence.  The inability of us to calmly discuss matters about the dog made me wonder how we would ever come to mutual decisions about children.  It couldn’t always be his way.  My voice, my opinion, didn’t matter.  While he may have intended some things to seem like compromises, it felt more like ultimatums.

The experiences with this little puppy made me re-examine my marriage and where we were and if we were actually trying to travel a path together.  The reflection brought forth the answer that we were not sharing similar visions except on a superficial level.  There were other factors, but they don’t need to be explored in such a format as this.  The point is that this dear sweet dog gave me the courage to accept that this marriage was not healthy and that changes had to be made.  The changes I suggested were refused so I accepted that it was over.

As we began the messy, ugly chore of separating our belongings, several items became bones of contention.  My Highlander sword.  That practice of ultimatums came out again.  I could have my Highlander sword OR the rest of the weapons I had collected.  I couldn’t afford to start over in my collection and so the crowning jewel of it was sacrificed.  It went this way for many items.  I let many things go by keeping my eye on the big picture.  But when it came to the pets, they all came with me.  The cats and hamster were mine in the sense that I brought them to the marriage.  The dog was technically ours, but I stated I was taking Brigs.  As he challenged me on this, I simply reminded him of the rainy day episode and said the dog comes with me.  My ex agreed.

I walked out of the marriage with basically what I walked into it with, but with a lot of debt added in because of stupid choices I agreed to over the two and a half years we were married.  I walked out without some of my optimism and that took a long time to reacquire.  Brigs helped with that because he was always just so damn happy.  His tail was always wagging and he seemed to smile when I came home to our tiny apartment.  It was a bear to find an apartment in my teeny budget that allowed dogs his size.  I only got into the place I did because I had the crate.

Brigs loved his crate!  He would go into his crate when he wanted a nap and close the gate behind him.  It was his way of saying “do not disturb”.  When he was done having his “me time”, out of the crate he’d come, tail wagging.  During those behind-closed-gate naps he would snore like nothing you’ve heard before.  Lips flapping, whole body wiggling at times, chasing bunnies with his feet running in air.  Brigadoon’s happiness and optimism helped me as I moved forward.

I also lost a lot of trust as that marriage ended.  I questioned motives, I looked for the “catch” from what people offered.  Brigs loved unconditionally and with total trust.  He helped me relearn trust.  He taught me so much about unconditional love.

But, being a human, I still had emotional memories attached to Brigs.  He represented so much about changing my life.  His existence in my life made my marriage today possible.  He helped make being a mommy possible.  And then to top it all off, even though he was four when our first son was born, he adapted to a baby so quickly.  Brigs loved having brothers!  He would position himself in front of the nursery door when I put one of the boys in for a nap.  He would guard the door!  He was protecting them.

He protected me.  Always being happy to see me protected me from becoming cynical.

As he got older, and I started thinking about the fact that he would not actually live forever, I wondered how I would feel when Brigs was gone.  I had no idea how many memories would wake up.  I had no idea how much release would come-a feeling that that marriage was really over.  Done.  Dead and buried.  Brigs was supposed to mark the beginning of that family and instead he marked the end.  And he went on to add so much to this family-to my hubby’s life, our sons’ lives, my life.

Oh, I miss that big yellow dog.