Writing By Laura

I don’t feel like writing nor do I feel like forcing myself to write. Why blog then? To simply update you on an event that I wish I didn’t have to.

My sweet Selby puppy died pretty suddenly. A week long bout of pancreatitis caused her little body to give out. I will never understand why this happened. She was (using the past tense physically hurts me) a happy, adorable, lovable ball of furry feels and (sometimes) stinky smells. She whined and cried when she saw people and dogs that she desperately wanted to say “hi” to. She had a close personal relationship with the first UPS driver we had once we moved to our house. Our neighbors kept a box of dog treats in their garage just to give to Selby when they saw her. She had many neighborhood boyfriends (one named Ross might actually be a dinosaur and not a dog [a black lab mixed with another huge breed… dinosaur?]). I loved to buy costumes and clothes for her (even pajamas) that she tolerated wearing even if she didn’t like it at first. She was (*gulp* past tense) little but she loved BIG.

Freckles on her nose, toes and everywhere she goes…

Selby was the third cocker spaniel that we’ve had in my family. We would get a different color so the new puppy would look different enough from our previous cocker spaniel (in theory). Cinnamon Ribbons was buff colored with a reddish tint; Tansy Lou was chocolate brown with tan paws; and little Selby Sweetie was black and white… with freckles, lots of freckles. Selby’s freckles were my favorite. She got more freckles as she got older (but not old enough… she was only 7). I used to say to her that she had “freckles on her nose, freckles on her toes and freckles everywhere she goes.” I just wasn’t prepared for one of the places that she would carry her freckles (so soon) would be to heaven.

Enthusiastic Love

Purple was always the color that a little girl would favor if she wasn’t quite girly enough for pink. Purple was my color as a kid. As I got older I chose more muted colors or more grown up colors. Then my Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) happened. My brain was jossled in my cranium and all the things that I liked but tried to dampen down my enthusiasm for in teenagehood and adulthood became loosened and I liked things with child-like unbridled enthusiasm again. I loved the color purple again and when I was recovered enough I insisted on getting my first very own puppy (dogs have always been something I have enthusiastically loved). Selby wasn’t just any puppy. She knew I was filled with child-like enthusaism and she met it with her wiggles and cries and cuddles. It was as if she was marked to be my girl as well because she had anxiety like I used to before the TBI rewired my brain. Because of my past struggles with anxiety I deeply understood Selby’s anxious nature. And because she was with me from the early stages of my recovery from my TBI she deeply understood my nature and my disabilities (she wasn’t a formally trained therapy or service dog but she was certainly self taught). We were very connected. We still are. That’s why this is so hard for me to write and why it’s taken me a while to write this (she died at 2:55 a.m. October 25, 2024 when she was exactly 7 years 5 months old). I am realizing that grieving with a severe TBI is much different than grieving was before. It almost feels like I have gone back in time and am grieving at the same intensity and sophistication level as I did when I was 12 or 13 and my very first dog, Tipsy, passed away. Every time I remind myself that Selby’s gone a little voice in my head that sounds very similar to a whiny teenager says “but that’s NOT FAIR!”

Through my love (unbridled and enthusiastic) for Selby I figured out who I was after my accident and living with this lifelong disability. When the accident happened I was childless, single and 37. Selby came into my life a year later and I was still all those things but older and now injured and disabled. Instead of feeling hopeless about it, I became a dog mom. I became Selby’s Mommy and I absolutely loved it. I had the realization as I came across one of my many Dog Mom items (I have T-shirts, coffee mugs, water bottles all that say “dog mom”) recently that even though she is no longer physically here… I will always be a dog mom because I will ALWAYS BE SELBY’S MOMMY. Several lovely people on Facebook (because that’s the modern-day place for condolences now- I don’t mean that sarcastically) said they loved to see my (many) pictures and posts on Selby because they loved to see how I loved her. I thought that was pretty astute considering that’s largely what I am saying here: I love loving Selby (present tense used on purpose).

The What Ifs

My parents and I are selling our house and we just moved (only 5 miles away) but to a detached one level townhouse that will be easier for all of us. In the mayhem of getting our house ready to list, listing it, showing it, and finding a new house and packing there was plenty of anxiety producing tension in our household. So when Selby started to have tummy problems and difficulties going poo, I just thought she was anxious. I wish I would’ve thought closer about it because she wasn’t eating much and that was never like Selby. She even ate through anxiety. We took her to her vet very quickly though and they didn’t see anything until we pointed out (at the second visit) that she seemed to be having a harder time chewing (then they looked at her teeth and saw her yellow eyes in the process). The yellow eyes put us on the path to get an ultrasound of her liver but we were initially going to have to wait a while for it. In the world of emergency veterinary medicine it was nearing a weekend and we wanted to make sure she was seen before that. After some driving around the city, Selby, Dad and I made our way to an emergency pet hospital and she stayed there for a week (Mom was at home but I constantly updated her with FaceTimes and texts). I can confidently speak for both my parents when I say that losing Selby was an absolute heartbreaking shock. Dropping her off at the pet hospital we didn’t think that’s where she was going to die. Not at all. The shock is what knocks the wind out of my lungs when I think of it.

An Unwanted Conclusion

In many blog posts I used to end them with several pictures of Selby and call it a “Selby Sweetie Conclusion.” There’s something oddly ironic about that because I never actually want there to be a Selby Conclusion now that life has given me an actual one. Grieving in my TBI world where emotions are dampened and no emotion except anger is easily accessible I constantly feel unmoored. Now when my body is feeling all these other emotions: sadness, grief, mourning, the ache of loss, my injured brain can’t feel those feelings really (not deeply and certainly not for longer than 30 seconds) and the result of that is that I feel physically sick (nauseous) and perpetually uneasy because I know I should be exhibiting emotions that I can’t. I am obviously still writing my memoir (several years into it) but I haven’t written much lately, even before Selby’s passing. One of the very polished and buttoned up sections of the memoir was a chapter I was calling “The Important Puppy” and in it I talk about all our dogs and lead up to Selby. Now I have to revisit that chapter. I am just not ready to do it yet. But she deserves it. Selby deserves everything.