On January 25, 2012 my dear sweet Granny passed away at 84 years young. Nothing like that phone call. The one where all you can hear in the background is crying, and you’re asked if your sitting. It was an unexpected call for sure. Granny was doing quite well last I saw her. Not so this night. Moments after that call came another, and another, and another and on the end of the line each and everytime was someone holding back tears, or crying full out.

And I was struck odd. I’m normally one to be crying right away, that emotional puddle on the floor of the room and this time the tears weren’t streaming. I felt strength (even though for the previous week I was barely able to get myself outta bed) and odd.

I raced with my baby sister to Dad’s side, Granny’s bedside where she still lay warm to the touch. It was surreal. Very surreal. Everyone kept hugging me and asking if I was alright, and I don’t really know how I was. It was a strange night. Being the strength for my father who seemed more in shock than anything, holding my sister up and getting what needed to be done, done. Calling the coroner, calling the funeral home, staying till late into the night and watching them remove her from the seniors home, and into the van. And yet, I still didn’t cry.

I suppose at some point I kept thinking she’d look up at me and ask me how Josh and the kids were and if I was taking care of things accordingly, something she said and asked often as the dementia grabbed hold. That moment of course never came and as they covered her over for the last time I realized she’ll never awaken. Those days are gone.

I remember her now with Alexzandria and her sparks group at Christmas time and it warms my heart and my soul. It’s the last really good memory I have of her. And it’s the memory that I am holding onto. It’s the memory from which I am drawing my strenth. The strength everyone keeps refering to. The strength they’re amazed I have, and the strength I didn’t know I had.

I’m sure at some point I’m going to crack. And I am afraid when the dams fail, that will be the end.

This will be the 4th time I’ve lost someone I love to death in the last 18 years. It started with Grandpa, Granny’s husband, and now it stands at Granny herself…

And when my strength around Granny’s death begins to fail I simply remember the words of Miss Alexzandria through her tears over Granny passing, and I chuckle to myself and believe she’s right.

“Granny will be put under the grass right?”

“Yes.”

“That’s good cause by summer she’ll be beautiful green grass.”

And Alex is more right than she realizes. My Granny loved nature, and loved everyone and when she is placed within her grave she will become one with all of that and more.

As for the rest of the year thus far, I’m hanging in. I had a doctor recently tell me to look at my bipolar disorder not as a disease but as a blessing. Once I am on a good path and healthy again the sky will be the limit and I am trying my best to believe it. If nothing else I wanna make those I’ve lost proud of the woman I’ve become in the years after they left this earth. And make myself proud of the things I’ve done and am doing in the process.

This weekend was just that for me.

The day should have started like any other. Should’ve being the operative word here. Instead it started in a frenzy.

Lily, my 6 month old pup would not go to sleep for the world. Nothing was going to calm her down. She was to bite me, growl at me, jump on me. Basically do anything it took to make me get out of bed. Figuring she really needed to go outside I obliged her insistance. It was this that saved my son’s life.

My little pitty cross went running full force up the two flights of stairs to my youngest sons room where she barked, whined and made me follow.

Upon arrival to his bedroom, I found him in a full blown asthma attack, lips blue, struggling to breathe. It was a truly terrifying moment. Few moments in my life have ever made me so scared.

I grabbed him, grabbed my ventolin and gave him every last puff that little blue tube had to give till he began breathing normally again, and off we were to the hospital.

A quick in and out, new medications and all that stuff and we were home. Which is when it all really sunk in.

Had I not had my dogs, I would not have my son. And suddenly, everything that is going wrong in my life, everything that is driving me to the edge and back, doesn’t matter so much.

Come the end of Saturday, I had my baby boy still with me. I wasn’t planning his funeral or mourning his death, I was celebrating his life, and the life of his best friend. He calls her his hero dog. His favorite dog. He showers her with love and praise, knowing that it was her that saved his life. Had she not awoken me in the middle of the night, 3 hours later when I should’ve gotten up, things would have been very different. Very different indeed.

Life happens, shit happens. It just does. What matters though, in the end, in all reality, is simply those little things. The little things, that when it’s all boiled down become the big things. The things that matter.

Introducing Lily Meier, the pup who saved my little Matty’s life:

Matty's Hero