Grateful to witness love, bravery and courage

I stand here in my garden and watch leaves fall like rain and almost overnight the little maple tree in the back yard has gone from green to yellow and the big one in the front yard has been kissed at the top with color like God has kissed His child's head.  That heliotrope that I deadheaded is blooming again, not wanting to give up and go to rest.  My geraniums are prettier and fuller than they were all summer now at the finish of their time to bloom and show their pink faces -- they just won't give it up.  The air has cooled dramatically and there is a wind blowing the coming season in moving us from the summer and garden to the space indoors.

Ten years ago today my sweet Maya came home for the first time straight off a plane and missing a hurricane that nearly wiped out the island where we found her.  Yesterday, I brought her home for the last time.  To rest in the beautiful urn we bought last week at an art fair and look down on us from the shelf next to the fireplace.  My heart...

My sweet Maya loved the yard...the leaves blowing and the flowers blooming.  Running after the hubs mowing grass or blowing leaves.  The snow that she ran in that was almost to her shoulders...over them at times.  Watching deer that she had never seen in her previous life, chasing squirrels and rabbits and chipmunks who taunted her.  Her spirit is there now and I recall her coming home to us.  It was a rescue we certainly did not plan...

We go to Cozumel at least a couple of times a year.  It started with our honeymoon and continued to escape the winter during January and March when I was off from my professorial duties during J-term and spring break.  Occasionally it would be random trips when we wanted to escape.  Such was the trip of May 2005 and it was hot...  but it had been a long semester and we wanted an escape.

We were at the beach bar we love so much, owned by a family we love so much.  As I went to open my car door I saw this pup trotting after a couple and they shooed her away.  She came to me and I said "Oh sweet puppy, it is so hot, go find a cool place to lay down."  She promptly jumped in the car and sat between the seats looking at the hubs and I as if to say "What is the holdup, let's go!"

We were already on our way to the Humane Society to drop off a suitcase full of donations and I told the hubs we'd take her and at least get her safe and off the beach.  He balked..."we don't know this dog..." but in he climbed and she laid her chin on his shoulder and licked his earlobe gently the whole way there.  She knew exactly who to pitch the sale to ;)

She had the most beautiful golden eyes.  She was sweet and smart and alert watching everything as we drove.  She figured out when we got to the HS and our friend Monica put a leash on her that this was not going to be the life she had...and she pulled away at first.  But we got her in a kennel and Monica assured me she would be fine and taken care of and SAFE.

The sun rested my bones after a long semester but my soul was haunted by those golden eyes.  I took pictures of the dusty paw prints on the car seat, I had taken a picture of her in her kennel that I kept looking at.  The hubs kept telling me that there were plenty of dogs at home needing help, let it be. But her heart pulled at mine.  And soon I found myself on a plane coming home longing for my girl with the golden eyes.  My heart ached and I did not know why.

Home two weeks, I was talking about her and recalling her eyes and spirit and suddenly the hubs said "OK, go call Monica and tell her we want her."  I don't think I've dialed a phone that fast...EVER!  We knew we could not have brought her home when we found her or even at my call to Monica.  The heat restrictions for the airlines banned it, so we made plans to go down in fall when it was cooler and restrictions were lifted.

Hurricane season runs June 1 to November 1 and it is a crap shoot.  Sometimes storms, sometimes nothing.   But in 2005 Hurricane Emily hit the island and my heart was in my throat as I waited to hear from friends about their safety and hear if my golden-eyed girl was OK.  Emily came in quick and Monica and the volunteers had to find shelter for the pups fast.  They had boarded up and secured the cattery and the pups were put into a vacant apartment to ride out what was said to be a short storm.  Short yes, damaging oh YES.  The island sustained a good amount of damage and our bar was gone...I thanked God we had gotten her safe.  Monica sent me a note and said when she went to get the pups out, all were safe, no injuries and that when she arrived my sweet Maya was sitting on a window ledge looking in at her as if to say "OK, I'm done, get me out."  My sweet girl had braved a wicked storm that even many humans are terrified of.

We decided after Emily swept in to make a trip down in August and meet up with our friends from Connecticut who have a house there and are family to us also.  It was a short trip for us...only about 4 days.  But it was Heaven because each day we got to get my girl and take her to the beach and spend our days with her.  That particular trip our rental car was an old green VW convertible.  Maya sat on my lap everywhere we went and had her nose out the window.  She ate cheeseburgers at the beach with Tia Retta. The smile on her face was pure bliss and from that trip on, the hubs would see her smile and forever after call it her "Green Volkswagen smile."  We could not take her home that trip, still too hot...I cried as we left her with Monica that last day.  We will be back sweet girl.

During that trip I had a conversation with Monica and we learned a bit more about Maya's history.  With a rescue pup you most often do not know but something had happened to present more of her story and it tore my heart to pieces...

Two sisters in their 20s had owned her.  They lived with their father who had a tenant in the apartment above them.  The tenant took Maya one night and dumped her in the jungle.  My sweet, brave girl managed to find her way back to her home only to have the man dump her in the jungle again.  She must have found her way to our beach bar and begged food to stay alive and slept there to keep safe.  She must have met with some horrible situations because her left ear had a v-shaped chunk out of it from a fight.  She had braved all of that and managed to figure out that the bar was safer than getting dumped in the jungle a 3d time.  The two girls showed up at the HS looking for their Dalmation that the tenant had also dumped in the jungle and when they saw Maya they cried and cried seeing her, overjoyed she was alive.  Their joy was short-lived hearing from Monica that their dog...the one that they named Mara...now was going to live with an American couple and was named Maya.  Monica was adamant that no dog was going to be given back to such an irresponsible situation and we were relieved and blessed.

Plans were made that the  hubs would go down and stay in the house of our Connecticut friends and get her and come home.  I had a training class for a corporate group in Dallas and could not go along so this was his adventure with our new girl, just the two of them.  As the day approached for them to come home, he called and asked me to look on the NOAA website for the weather.  Hurricane Wilma was gearing up for a run at Cuba and he seemed a bit worried.  I assured him that the website showed Cuba as a target, but he was worried because people were buying plywood and water like crazy.  "Something is up here, it's a strange energy and people are acting weird."  I assured him the map showed Cuba, not Cozumel and he was to come home the next day.  All would be fine.  I sat in my little corporate dorm room telling him not to worry.  But I did.

All was not fine.

Monica saw them off at the airport along with a sweet pup named Morena that one of my sorority girls was going to adopt and was coming with Maya.  Everything was set up and both pups secured to ride home in cargo safe and sound when Monica told the hubs that she would not talk to us for several weeks but would be in touch as soon as she could and for us to send an email with pictures and notes about Maya's homecoming.  When the hubs asked why so long and what was going on, she said that this was THE LAST flight off the island and when he left, the island was shut down and everyone was under house containment because Wilma was due shortly and it was going to be bad.

And it was.  It almost destroyed our island paradise.  That bitch Wilma moved in.  And sat on the island for nearly 63 hours.  So much gone...

Men fished by hand to feed their families.  Blocks in from the ocean there was a wall of seaweed nearly 9 feet tall.  No phone, no electricity.  Pictures showed people on 30th street, nearly a mile in from the ocean, kayaking down the street to get around.  Divers brought in hundreds of tons of salvage from the sea...washing machines to furniture.  Roads were completely gone, homes devastated, businesses wiped out.

But my loves made it home.  The hubs, Maya and little Morena made it.  The pups walked off a plane into the crisp fall air and warm homes with love they had never known.  Maya was so thin and waif-like that on the way home from the airport she slipped from the back seat between the door and driver's  seat to crawl into the front to sit in the hubs lap as he drove.

My BRAVE girl was home.

She was sassy and dominant and there were more than a few scraps with Tessa who was the queen of the castle.  She took to the toys and the food and most of all the yard...she loved the yard.

When the hubs took her to puppy obedience she was obviously smart but struggled with instruction.  I asked the hubs what the phrase for "sit down" was in Spanish and the hubs replied, "sientate."

Her butt hit the ground.

There it was, she speaks SPANISH!  Our sweet, smart girl was bilingual!!  And from then on, we had to figure out what she had been taught to find out that she had to hear "sit, lay down, come here, and speak" in Spanish.

Our smart girl.

That's what our groomer Kathy called her.  The SMART GIRL.

She had 3 other packmates, Tessa who was the original Higgins baby, Max our handsome Springer, and Chico our regal blind boy who I wrote about last fall.  It was an adjustment...for her and all of us.  It was bliss and chaos all at once.

My Daddy was in a nursing home with Alzheimers and I decided to take her to meet him 3 weeks after she arrived.  She arrived to his room, jumped into his bed as he woke from a nap and licked his face.  My sweet Dad who had not spoken in full sentences for over 6 months looked at me and said "SHE'S NEW, ISN'T SHE?"  When I tugged her leash to pull her off the bed, he sternly said 'DON'T HURT HER!"  She was already doing special things...

Daddy died at Christmas a few weeks after he met her.

A few months later we lost Max within a few hours of him feeling sick.

Three months later, six months after Daddy, my mother died.

Three weeks after my mother, Tessa died.  She greeted me at the door at 10:30 in the morning and was dead at 2:30.  The hubs was in Dallas.  I was about at my end.

Two weeks later, our sweet friend Edwin died when he got off the treadmill and wiped his face.  He was 57.

Soon after, my college fired me for taking "too much time" to handle my parents' passing because "technically" they died over breaks, I didn't need "time" they informed me.  In a voicemail.

The grief in our house was palpable.  Chico was left with Maya.  The new kid.  He was inconsolable.

But I watched this sweet girl scoot on the floor up to Chico and lick his muzzle, nibble his ears and neck.  She knew he was blind and knew he needed her.  Needed love.  Could not play like other pups because he was blind.  Knew his heart was broken.

She climbed into the chair with me and cuddled.  She slept with me when the hubs was gone for work.  She KNEW.  

But slowly, we started to heal and she stayed by Chico's side and cuddled me.  She went to the mailbox with the hubs and waited dutifully when told to stay while he got the mail.  She followed me all over the backyard as I landscaped my space one summer.  Life got better and she got a new pack mate a year later.  Another rescue.

Marty arrived.  All was good and the little blonde man settled in with her and Chico.  And years were good.  We healed from so much pain and she was at the helm in charge of the pack.  She herded and commanded and made us laugh.  She, who had braved the jungle and abandonment, survived things we don't even know about that left her scarred and wounded, courageously survived a hurricane and escaped another one, slept on a soft puppy bed and climbed into patio furniture to make us laugh and fill our hearts.

We lost Chico last year and she grieved and was stoic and quiet.  The Green Volkswagen Smile was missing for a time as she listened for his conversation with the hubs in the mornings and looked for him at meal time.  She laid in his spot in the living room and with her arms wrapped around his food bowl.  It broke my heart in two places...for Chico's and hers.

At the beginning of this year a new set of paws came into the house and Maya stepped to the plate and guided and herded and taught her the ropes.  She chased her in the yard as they ran in what was left of the snow  And then one day I saw her pull her back leg up as she chased the puppy in play...

The next week, the groomer found a lump on her ankle and told me to get it checked out, it didn't look good.  We took her to the U vet school for a biopsy.  And my sweet, brave girl who had never been to the vet for anything other than annual check ups, had a spot in her ankle so moth-eaten with bone cancer that we were cautioned not to let her even jump off the couch.  Amputation was scheduled for the following week.

The veterinary oncologist told us something that was so fitting for our Maya.  She said that every single day she is in awe of her patients and the bravery and courage they display and what they go through, with no complaint and they get up and keep going with nothing but love, courage and bravery.  She said they they trust her to take care of them and forge ahead, never holding on to the past or having a grudge.  They do all of this for US.  Their bravery and courage is also deeply laden with love. They endure this for us.

So I watched as she walked down the hall away from us at the U vet hospital on all four legs with the oncology tech, with her Green Volkswagen Smile, to return 36 hours later without her rear right leg and laden with stitches, a drain, and fighting to manage the pain.

Bravely walking in the exam room to us now without a leg, and with courage going on walks in the neighborhood right away with the hubs.  The pain patch did not work and she fought the intense pain until we figured it out and got her what she needed.  Later on, bravely supervising the puppy once again and stoically allowing her Marty boy to nap next to her for comfort.  No complaints, just courage and bravery, like the oncologist said.  For us.

Enduring medicine, blood work, vet visits, X-rays, she held strong.  It spread to her lungs.  She never slowed down or showed signs of what was literally eating her alive.  And then in some miracle it began to shrink and in some spots disappear altogether.  She was stronger and it seemed that she would beat this and only leave us as an old woman God called home instead of one that this horrible disease claimed as its prize.

One morning sitting with her, I played a game/quiz on Facebook about the meaning of your name.  Maya means Warrior Princess it said.  I agree.

She barked at us to bring out her cushions for the patio furniture so she could sit in the sun.  She laid in her spots in the garden with her eyes shut taking in the sun and with that Green Volkswagen Smile on display.  She barked at the puppy as the crazy little one raced back and forth across the yard.  She came to the couch and barked in demand that I get her dinner ready.  She begged from the dinner table.  She went with us on the hubs fishing boat for a couple of rides this summer and moved like she was the captain.  And though I had to carry her up and down the stairs, she laid next to me in the office as I worked and slept on the foot of our bed at night like nothing had changed.  To her nothing really had because she braved it all because she loved us and wanted more time with us.  That little bunch of fur that was supposed to be a tail...her butt fluff, twitched and made me smile showing me she was still my girl from the beach.

She was our survivor.

Two weeks ago yesterday morning God decided He could not live without her and very suddenly one of those nodules in her lungs ruptured and took her from us.  She had just the day before had an appointment with the U and they were in awe, she was A+ and I ran to keep up with her running down the hall to see Dr. Choi.  It happened so fast...  Almost 6 months to the day after the cancer was found.

I could not catch my breath.  Today I can't either.

I still go to pick her up to go up to bed at 10.  I still reach for her bowl at meal time.

Marty is inconsolable.  The puppy is clueless...she's a puppy.

Marty sleeps on the bed now.  I told him he's been promoted.  He is missing his sparkle though, his heart is broken.

The spot on the ottoman is achingly empty when I have morning coffee with the pups.  No one meets me at the door when I come home...Marty is up on the bed sleeping in her spot and we crate the crazy one when we are gone.

Her blanket where she slept in the dining room for the 10 years...the blanket whose pattern name is  "Cozumel" is laying on the back of a chair.

The garden is hauntingly quiet and I still go out in habit to make sure she is OK going potty on 3 legs.

No one barks for dinner or treats, the other two are quiet.

No one is supervising the puppy and now it is my job :)

The puppy bed next to my desk is empty...Marty did go sleep there a bit last week.  The seat next to me in the car is empty, no shotgun rider now.  No one wanting to put their nose out the sunroof.

And my schedule is much emptier now...no vet visits.

The hole in my heart is enormous.  She was my smart, brave, courageous special girl who lived through so much, survived so much and now I just have to try hard to feel her spirit visiting me.

All of the fur kids are special, no question.  They are rescues and choose us.  But she was more than special.

Maya, I am not nearly as brave and courageous as you and losing you and missing you is so painful. You taught me so much and I grew so much from having you in my life.  I am a fuller heart and a better person for having found you on a beach.

On the 10th anniversary of your arrival on that flight escaping a hurricane, I honor you here.  I love you and miss you so much.

So much.

Thank you for being my blessing and filling my heart.  You worked magic ...  you were magic here and always will be in my heart <3