Remembering Jack

It is 10:50 p.m. and I can't sleep.  My last post was about my beloved Jack.  I think about him often. He died February 26th, 2014.  It's ridiculous how much I miss him.  I have been watching videos of boxers on YouTube and its funny how much people love their dogs.  Why?  Why that surreal connection to an animal?  I wonder if broken people like me from dysfunctional families come to love their animals because they are constant. My dog loved me back regardless of my mood.  Jack would never leave me he was always nearby.  When I cried he came to comfort me.  Sadly I cannot say the same about my family.  Perhaps this is why some come to love their dogs so desperately.

Out of desperation and sadness and a need to fill the hole in my heart I went out and bought a standard poodle two months after he died.  The rebound dog.  What a mistake.  Not only did I know nothing of this breed other than what I researched he was also from a breeder who kept him unsocialized in a garage for four months (I didn't know this until I drove 4 hours with my 6 year old to pick him up).  Needless to say the three months we had him did not go well.  He was terrified of everything.  He bit my son every chance he got. In fact, he bit 7 of my his friends -- this was something the parents were not very happy about.  No amount of training was reversing this behavior so I did the unthinkable and most humiliating thing ever -- I returned him to the breeder.  Like the jilted lover I ran into the arms of another way too soon and could not love him enough to make it work.

So here we are one and half years after Jack's death and we are looking to add to our family again.  A boxer this time.  I can't help but wonder if I will find one as wonderful as him.  What if I don't?  What if I pick a bad one?  A "bad one" you say?  What could make him bad?  Maybe he won't like kids. What if he doesn't like other dogs?  Worse yet -- what if my husband hates him?   My husband doesn't want another dog because they make life difficult.  I say -- they make life wonderful.

"Life is difficult!" I say whether you have a dog or not.  These last two years I have been toiling away at my graduate degree and its been ... difficult (my youngest son recently revealed to his 2nd grade class my favorite activity is "studying").  Earlier this year my sister-in-law died (way to young) and my family continues to grow more disconnected each year.  My adult son whom I never thought would "inherit" the dysfunction of my family -- did.  My husband likes to say it trickles down from the top.  How true this is.  The matriarch, my mother, is very disconnected and uninterested in her children's lives.  It has been this way for many many many years.  My nephew recently went into the military at age 18. His mother was with my brother for many years and they had two children.  Those children endured much including my brother abandoning them when he found someone new.  Oddly -- they are doing very well.  I have pondered this lately a great deal and the difference between her family and mine (they have dysfunction as well) is her parents are very active in her life -- as well as her children's lives.

Of course a dog can never take the place of a loving family, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, but unlike so many family members today -- your pets are present -- always.

I find this writing to be cathartic....perhaps I will try to do it more.