My mother was born on February 27th 1936. On February 27th, last month, she would have been 81 years old.
I have a lot of precious memories of my mother, sadly she got disabled in her sixties. She had the right-of-way walking through a green light when she was run down in the crosswalk by a truck driven by a drunk driver.
She was lucky to survive after she sustained a massive brain injury and lost her sight & hearing. This was a decade before she died. Her poor husband who is older than her had to take care of her and nurse her until he himself passed away. Then she was in the care of others and had to be put in Assisted Living.
After her husband passed away, and my mother was unable to walk the dogs or care for them, we adopted their two dogs.
My mother and her husband had adopted them as puppies and raised them for five years until my husband and I brought them to live in Minnesota.
The two dogs are named Cole and Pixie.
After my husband Jim and I picked up the dogs from my mother’s house, we were shuttled to the airport by my mother’s friends.
The two dogs were checked in at the airport and we all had to take the Big Metal Bird from Seattle to Minnesota, first crossing over the Pacific from Victoria Island in a noisy boat, the Seattle Clipper.
The two frightened dogs had to hunker down in crates near a loud engine.
I went from being footloose and fancy-free to becoming a dog mom. And that’s what I’ve been doing for the past seven and a half years.
The dogs have taken over my life. No matter what we do we have to always take the dogs into consideration. Especially since the Pomeranian as a diabetic.
But they are a memory of my mum. They are her legacy to me because she loved them so much. When she could no longer walk them because she was too disabled and her husband had passed away, then I agreed to rescue the two dogs and not separate them from each other.
They are very happy and contented living in our house. They are a lot happier given free rein of the place.
Back in British Columbia they barked so much the police were always being called because they were bored and depressed penned in a little entry area of the house.
My mother couldn’t take care of them the way they needed to be taken care of. The dogs were much younger then and were high-spirited. They needed a lot of exercise and attention. Actually, they still do.
Some of my happiest memories as a child was seeing my mother walk through the front door after she had been at work or grocery shopping. It makes my heart rejoice when the dogs get all excited when I walk in the front door. It’s fun to see them jumping up and down and glad to see me!
Everytime I look at my dogs I am reminded of my mother and how she loved animals. Although I grew up in the heart of urban Toronto, we always had animals as pets.
There were the white mice, Flinky and Twinkie, cute cuddly cats named Sammy and Susie and others, a tan chihuahua named Fritzie, a brindle Bull Terrier, a brown and white guinea pig named Joey, Myrtle the Turtle, a budgie bird, and many others over the years.
Having pets is a good thing. I think it taught me empathy more than anything. I’m very grateful to my mother for being an animal lover and for her two dogs who light up my life everyday.
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