For some thirty-five years I believed every homemaker and wife should have the House Beautiful, Traditional Home, Architectural Digest, type home --- which or whatever. It had to stay immaculate and HAD to be gone over weekly if not more often. Since there were no animals or children to soil anything it really was not so difficult to keep it that way. At least not from this perspective --- today.
Something happened when Ken died. For some unknown reason that I can never explain House Beautiful didn't matter any more. Not much mattered any more --- for the better part of seven years not much mattered. The home stayed clean but seemed more like a house. We had just built a new home on Wild Orchid Trail. That didn't really matter either. My family sensing my state of mind wondered if I would ever get beyond this paralysis.
So my sister and her husband purchased a miniature schnauzer pup for me for Christmas and had her flown to Wilmington from a breeder in south central Tennessee. They brought her to me on Christmas Eve and nothing has been the same since in my house. Gone is House Beautiful and I have welcomed House Canine since. That Tennessee girl I named Sassy and she was my companion until cancer claimed her last November. Training puppies, nursing sick doggies, walking doggies, playing with doggies ---all of these have been a part of my life since Ken. Now I have Piper and Kamelot (Kami).
Perhaps this change of lifestyle is all better said in an altered form of this poem:
Some homes try to hide the fact that doggies shelter there.
Mine boasts of it quite openly, the signs are everywhere!
For smears are on the windows, little smudges on the door.
I should apologize, I guess, for toys strewn on the floor.
But I sat down with the doggies and we played and we laughed and read;
And if the doorbell doesn't shine their eyes will shine instead.
For when at times I am forced to choose the one job or the other,
I want to be a homemaker ---- but first I'll be a doggie mother! 1
I love my schnauzer girls today -- both of them. In my memories always --The Best Christmas gift ever --- a schnauzer named Sassy. Rest in Peace my precious one.
1 Poem adapted from: http://www.xmission.com/ 19 Dec 2011
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