A little sadness before the happiness sets in

I firmly believe that the challenges we go through in life happen for a reason, even though those reasons may not expose themselves until much later on.  In the toughest of life’s challenges, including those I am facing today, I try to reassure myself by thinking that there is a reason for all of this.  The problem was, when I decided to adopt my first puppy, I didn’t know this yet.  When I made the decision to adopt, I had just graduated from college with a teaching degree.  I was looking down the neck of my first year of teaching, hadn’t gotten a job yet, and couldn’t stop thinking about getting a dog.

The vast majority of my life we had anywhere from 2-4 pets in our house.  I grew up around animals and found life without them somewhat unsatisfying.  In my post-adolescent, staring-into-the-face-of-real-life mind, this simple dissatisfaction had manifested itself into the idea that getting a dog would solve all of life’s problems (general loneliness, insecurity, and discomfort in my own skin).  I wasn’t happy in NYC and felt as though the city had started to suffocate me.  I needed an animal to help me breathe, and I needed it immediately.

            It was two weeks before moving out that I convinced my not so dog-friendly landlord to “look the other way” because there was a puppy that a friend of mine was giving away that I had to get NOW and couldn’t wait until I moved.   Then I hopped on the Long Island Railroad with my 2 soon-to-be roommates and got off at a large dog shelter that was known for always having puppies on Saturdays.  I took about 10 minutes to pick out the cutest little black lab I’d ever seen, probably no more than 7 weeks old.  I named her Maya and carried her home on the train smiling the biggest smile I’d had in years.

            During the week that Maya lived with me, she was never alone.  I loved that little puppy with all the pent up love I had in my heart.  I took care of her as I imagined a mother would take care of her newborn.  I spilled all of my sorrows and worries into her.  Maya was a quiet, playful, happy puppy but as the week progressed I noticed she wasn’t eating much at all.  By the end of the week she started having diarrhea and vomiting.  The day of graduation from college, I left her with my future roommate for the day.  I could go through the sob story of rushing to pick her up after graduation with my entire family and my grandmother who was visiting the city she grown up in but hadn’t seen for 40 years.  I could tell you about the wait at the animal hospital and the frantic drive to take her back to the vet at the shelter so that care was free.  I could describe in detail the week of awful waiting and check-in phone calls that got less and less hopeful.  I could write about how the vet said she had Parvo, a puppy infection, and had caught it before I adopted her.  I could relive for you the last call, when hope was gone and I had to say goodbye over the phone.  I could even talk about the weeks after when the devastation of it all set in.

            But I won’t do that, because that is not the point of this story.  The point of this story is that without this horrible experience, without the preciously short life of Maya, I wouldn’t have found Lucy.  And without Lucy, I wouldn’t have found running.  And without running, I wouldn’t be who I am today.