I’ve just returned from a visit to my homeplace, the little town where I grew up…  a place that’s done quite a bit of growing up itself. I had some adventures there. I spent a day on the beach with my terrific husband. I walked my pug down to the lake where she tried to eat a mussel and was teased by the little waves. And I got to spend two evenings with my zany cousins.

And I am struck with the fact that though we are born with our very own personalities, where we grow up and who we grow up with becomes a part of us forever. I grew up on the water and almost felt I couldn’t breathe until I finally got back to it. My favorite pals and best friends were my cousins. We had adventures every time we were together … and still do. I was given the gift of a terrific mom who loved me completely and made me feel like anything was possible.

All these things made indentions and smooth places on the heart that I was born with, like a sculpturer’s polish…like an artist’s brush. And though the things that come into my life now might affect the shape of who I am, those early impressions and experiences are the things that have given me the color of my soul.

My youngest child is adopted. She has known all her life that we adopted her and I told her, honestly, that I believed her birthmother loved her with all her heart. There are several reasons why I believe that, one of them being that I can’t imagine how much courage it took for her to carry her baby and then let her go.

In the last couple of years my daughter has had to start dealing with the feeling of rejection that almost all adopted children have to go through. Sometimes no amount of assurance helps. Being given away feels like rejection.

She is living on her own now and has always wanted a puppy, so on her 18th birthday we gave her Buster the Pug (see November 16th entry). She was absolutely delighted and she has loved that puppy with all her heart. But because she is on her own she has to work long hours to make ends meet and has started looking for a second job. She knew that Buster needed more time and care than she could give him. She knew that because of her circumstances she couldn’t take care of him in the way that he needed and deserved. So she decided to try and find Buster a new home.

Buster is adorable and it didn’t take long. We found a wonderful family for him to live with. A place where he will get all the time and attention he needs. She asked me if I would take him to his new home. She just couldn’t do it herself.

When we were loading him and all his stuff up she was crying and she said to me, “Mom, you really can love someone with all your heart and give them away. If my birthmother felt like this then she must have loved me very much.”

We plan on staying in contact with Buster and his family. They promised to send pictures of him and perhaps we’ll get to see him once in a while at Pug Meet. Still, we’ll miss him. But in the short, few months that Buster belonged to my daughter he taught her one of the most important lessons of love…that sometimes the only way to love right is to let go.

We surprised my daughter with a pug puppy today.

She was at lunch with a neighbor and I called her and asked if we could drop by her house and wait inside till she got home. We took the puggy in and all his puppy supplies and let him play while we waited for her to get home. 

The puppy was pretty shy with my husband and me but the minute he saw my daughter he knew right away that he belonged to her. It was amazing.

She said, “Your name is Buster.” And when she said his name he sat up and pawed at the air.

The puppy is a beautiful, little rescue that I am certain was meant to be a part of our family.

Lucy dressed up for the Atlanta Pug Fest

Well, we finally got there. We have driven past this play park for dogs for the last five months. Today was cool enough to take a pug outside for a run so we went to Six Wags. Lucy loved it!!! First she ran all around looking back at me like she was saying, “Are you really going to let me go wherever I want?” Then with a treat I coaxed her through the agility tunnel…then with a treat (it seems she will do almost anything for a treat) I coaxed her over the jump, then around the cones. Since we were the only “people” at Six Wags we moved on up to the medium sized dog park where there was a creek. Now, Lucy has never been much for water. When we took her to the beach and she stepped in a puddle she put on the four-legged breaks (you know like the horses in the cartoons). But today….she ran right across the creek! She may become a water dog yet!. I’m thinking it may be time to see if her life jacket fits. Kayak here we come!

My pug, Lucy, makes a habit of eating anything she can get into her tiny mouth. Last night when I took her out for her last potty she found something in the leaves. That something started her coughing and gagging. This isn’t the first time she has done this. She sees the whole world as one big smorgasborg. And she has had gagging fits before but this time she didn’t stop. So I loaded her up at 11:30PM and carried her to the 24 hour Animal Emergency room. To my utter surprise the place was full. It turns out that Saturday night at the Animal Emergency room is about as dramatic as the one for people. My gagging pug had to wait for a poodle who had torn out his stiches, a German Shepherd who had collided with another dog chasing a tennis ball and a pit bull who had been fighting and the police ordered his owners to take him to be cared for (You can imagine the dirty looks those guys got from the rest of us). Anyway, Lucy gagged through the first hour of waiting but by the time the vet saw her whatever was stuck went on down the hatch. He gave her a shot for the inflammation in her throat and sent us home.

The upside to this?? Lucy the Pug is just fine now… and it is really good to know that there are places to take sick doggies in the middle of the night…:)