Heartbreak and Love

Heartbreak and Love
April 30, 2013 at 10:05am
The entire situation started months ago, as a matter of fact a couple of years. Sunday dinner at mama’s and my brother is sitting across the table and tells me he just saw the saddest thing as he was dumping his garbage before coming to Sunday dinner. Someone had put puppies in a plastic container and left them behind the dumpsters. The dumpsters were on back roads, where the country folks take their own garbage and dump it and the big trucks come once a week and pick it up and haul it away. He said they were crying and so pitiful. The rest of the meal and early afternoon the image of those pups kept creeping into my mind. Dinner finished, dishes washed, and after having one of the best cups of coffee ever ;( everyone knows coffee at mama and daddy’s house is the world’s best cup); it was time to head home and finish chores and relax a bit before going to bed and starting the new week. Phil, my husband and I were almost half the distance of arriving home and I just had to tell him what my brother had announced at the dinner table was really bothering me. The thought of those puppies starving to death, or getting run over was replaying in my mind. Phil asked if I wanted to go by and check on the pups and I assured him it was the only way I could rest. We turned around and headed twice the distance back to the dumpsters to find an entire litter of pups. They were crying, filthy, and looked as if half their hair was gone. Phil asked me what I felt we should do and I asked him to bring them home and try to help them and find them good homes. Our neighbor, once made aware of our decision, came over and saw the awful health of the pups and supplied all the things necessary to help try to get the pups feeling better.
I will backup a bit here. Phil and I moved to Georgia just a year prior to this rescue with a huge pup of our own. His name was Charlie. Charlie was very special, he lived inside with us, and he had his very own bedroom with a twin size bed. He also had his own dresser and two large stacks of balls and toys. Not long after we got settled into our new home, my youngest son called me up and told me he was sitting in a ditch on a dirt road. The reason he gave me was that he had found a puppy in the ditch that needed a home, food, and medicine. He said his sister, whom he lived with at the time, would not allow him to bring a dog home. At the time he did not have a job and could not afford to help the pup or feed it. I asked Phil if he minded my son bringing the pup to our home in the country. Phil, of course said it was a fine idea. Phil has a heart of Gold, one of the gentlest souls you could ever meet. He loves animals. With no reserve at all, he loves animals. So, this puts us living in Georgia a year and we own two pups. One ruling the nest inside and one guarding the house outside. Life was good. One more bit of information here, not long before we moved to Georgia we lost our Missy on Valentine’s Day. Missy was our sweet, enormous, lab-bulldog mix. She suffered terribly and died of cancer. Phil did everything he possibly could to save her. He even took weekly visits with her to a specialist and she received chemo treatments. She suffered so until one day he finally took the step to call the vet and ask to bring her in one last time. I sat with the two of them, as she was given a shot and she quietly fell asleep in his arms. He cried, his heart broke that day. I could barely watch him sitting there in the floor of that cold room holding her in his arms while his tears fell on her peaceful, yet lifeless face. Those few precious moments seemed to freeze. Moments seemed an eternity. He is still not over losing one of his best friends. The pup my son brought to us turned out to be a lab-bulldog mix, Phil named her Lady.
To catch back up, this means with the new rescues we now had 11 dogs of all sizes. Our goal of course was to aid the pups to health and find them their own homes. As the pups became healthy they began to grow. We did find a home for a few of them, and one died. The poor little thing just never could get healthy enough to survive. Life went on fine for a while. Then we discovered Lady was pregnant. Around this same time we discovered on of the rescues we named Runt was pregnant also. With Lady and Runt having babies we soon had a total of 21 pups. Lady decided she wanted to take her pups under the house and tore holes in the bottom side of the house and ripped duct work loose from our air-conditioning. No matter how many times Phil climbed under there and removed the pups and mended the damage, she would decide she wanted her way and repeat the process. We set out to find homes for more pups. Some of them died from snake bites, some left and never returned. We found homes for some. Phil took Runt to the vet and had her fixed. By the time he took the others in for shots and checkups, something happened that made me wonder where we were headed with all these pups. Lady was pregnant again. All the other pups in the yard had decided to form a pack. They visited our neighbor one evening and out of fear for his health he shot one of them. Phil put them all in the shop at night and put them on chains in the yard during the day. By this time we had Runt and Bully, two of the rescues from the dump; and Boots, who was one of Ladies first litter and Lady. Then Lady blessed us one night with nine more.
Please bear with me to back up once more. When we moved to Georgia with only Charlie in the house with us he became very sad and droopy. I thought if he had a playmate inside with him that he wouldn’t keep mourning his old home and old friend Missy. A friend gave me Mr. Xavier. Xavier is a tiny black and white pup. Charlie couldn’t figure out at first what he was or if he wanted to catch him ad eat him or ignore him or be frightened of him and keep hid in his room. One day Xavier would not come when I called him and searched the entire house until I finally thought to go to Charlie’s room. Charlie was lying on his bed with Xavier resting behind him, between Charlie’s back and the wall. The two of them became best of friends. Charlie would pretend to be knocked over by this tiny pup and let him climb all over him. He chased him throughout the house nearly knocking over tables and chairs, and then they would curl up and go to sleep together. Charlie measured about three feet tall on all fours and Xavier stood about eight inches. They became the best of friends doing everything together. One day Charlie started showing all the same signs that we once noticed in Missy. Phil took him to the vet and decided something to help him with the pain would suffice; he would not be limited as Missy was. He would not be with us as long without the chemo, but with the pain meds he would have a shorter better quality of life. In a few months we lost Charlie. He had to be put in the shop on a bed on the floor; he was getting worse and couldn’t control his bowels or when he threw up. I got up early in the mornings and if Phil was still asleep I would walk out and visit with Charlie, I somehow knew he understood what I told him. Early one morning I went out to visit with him and he was not there. He hadn’t been able to get up and walk for over two days and I knew he didn’t have much time left. He was gone. I searched the back yard, the edge of the woods, the trails in the backyard wondering how he could possibly have gotten up. I ran into the house through the backdoor and woke Phil. As he put shoes on and stated that he was going out to the shop and start looking for Charlie I told him I was going back out into the woods in the front yard. I opened the front door and screamed. Charlie had somehow tried to get to Phil in the night. I don’t know how but he had made it up the front steps and to the front door and lay down waiting for Phil. He passed before we could find him. Phil’s heart broke again. After a few months passed I thought if Phil had another pup inside he wouldn’t experience the absence of Charlie quiet so much. We soon picked up Dee Dee. She is the same size of Xavier and she has taken to Phil just as Missy and Charlie had. She follows him everywhere, gives him kisses whether he wants them at the time or not, and sneaks under the covers in the middle of the night to snuggle with him.
Now to sum up we now have Lady, Boots, Runt, and Bully, Xavier, Dee Dee and nine pups. Phil’s cousin found a wonderful place in South Carolina to take Lady, her pups, and Boots. They will all be together until each are found their own homes. These sweet people find the pups homes and travel north to deliver them. Through donations the pups receive all the heath treatments they need and they all get individual care and love. Phil and I drove up a little over a week ago and delivered the pups to their care. It was so very hard for Phil to give them up; especially Lady of whom he had almost replaced Missy with. I took a picture of him and Lady just before he handed her over to the Rescue. I uploaded the picture this morning. I was there when he held Missy and she took her last breath, I was there when he carried Charlie across the yard and buried him along with Missy’s ashes. I saw his face, the pain, the heartbreak. I heard his voice shake as he tried to keep moving forward in the following weeks. Letting Lady and the other pups go to the rescue has broken his heart once more. He still looks so sad and lost at times as he stares into space and thinks of his new loss. He was already attached deeply to the pups we gave to the Rescue as well as Lady and Boots. I did not have a picture of him and Missy at her leaving him, nor did I have frame of mind to get a photo of him with Charlie as he left Phil. I did however get this photo of Phil saying goodbye to Lady. There is no doubt in my mind that all of the ones we took to the rescue will be better for us taking them there. But this picture made me see the pain and heartbreak once again in his eyes.
We now have Bully and Runt protecting our home from the outside and Dee Dee and Xavier ruling the house from the inside. It will take time but Phil will be able to love these pups we still have and remember all the others with a little less pain. In this man is a heart of gold, and a loving soul that he doesn’t even see at times. I will forever keep this picture. To remind me of the love he holds inside of their memories, to remind me of the feeling of watching someone I love so dear have to lose another that he loves. They were all just Dogs one might say. They were dogs, but much more, each pup was an individual soul, with personality and love. Full of adventure and mischief, they were all loved beyond measure. I he could afford to house and feed them Phil would have hundreds of animals; he would spend every extra moment letting them know how much he loved them. Unfortunately he had to make the decision to let others show them their love and find a way to let them go, even though once again it broke his heart.
I feel so blessed to have this man as my husband. To see the amount of love he holds through all the heartache. His heart has been broken through loss and yet he keeps allowing God to fill him up again and again. With this he loves a new soul, he never gives up, and he is truly my love. I see such compassion through his eyes. If a man can love what some would call just a dog this much, when he tells me he loves me, I am honored. To him they are souls, precious souls; to him they are no different than a person. He has shown me such love and such strength. Thank you God for allowing me to receive this man as my husband, and for teaching me through him that when your heart breaks, it will take time but it will heal, and if you leave it open God will fill it up, put it back together again stronger and give you another soul to love just as much. I only have to be willing to allow it to happen. Never, never, close your heart because it becomes broken, trust that it will refill and you will love again. Each time this happens, I have realized the refill of love makes you able to love a little more than the last time. If I had given up because of heartbreak, I would not know the love for Phil. I am so blessed. When I look at the picture I took of him and Lady, I will always be reminded of Phil’s love. his incredible strength, and his huge heart.
Wendy NoelWendy Noel
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