Not How I Expected It To Happen

I don't know why but since the beginning of the year I just knew the time was coming. July 15th, 2010 started like most normal days other than the fact that Mom is here from Montana and my daughter from Oklahoma. My day did begin like normal. Upon getting up I did my study time and then posted the last part to my "Mercy" lesson on my blog. I continued with my morning routine of eating breakfast and letting Chico outside. During this time Chico gets his medication and breakfast too.

Shantelle & Mom were more with it. They were already done with their breakfasts and dressed for the day. So while I did my primping they took Chico for a walk. My primping time took a little longer than normal because I decided to trim my hair too. I didn't resurface with Mom & Shantelle until it was almost 10:30 in the morning.

By that time I had received several text messages from my sister. She was driving over from Minnesota to spend the day with us. Once she arrived we started our time together by going out to lunch. We all had such a good time eating and laughing. Mom said to Shantelle, her granddaughter, "I can't believe I raised these two!" It was her way of saying she had no control over us anymore. We were joking around so much. After lunch we did some serious shopping.......at second-hand stores. It's our kind of shopping.

When we returned back to the house my husband grilled hamburgers on the grill for our supper. We talked and laughed some more. Chico for some reason liked my sister's legs and kept licking her. He was always looking for someone to play tug with him. After doing dishes together in the kitchen my sister went back home. Kevin went out on visitation with my son. Mom & Shantelle claimed to be totally worn out. I made a trip to the grocery store and by the time I got back home the guys had returned from visitation and everyone was just talking.

As the day was winding down my son went back to his apartment. We had our family prayer time and then everyone proceeded to get ready for bed--all except me. I'm the night owl in the family. I started texting some messages back and forth with my other daughter. I really wasn't going to stay up late. Sometime after 10:00 pm I was turning off lights and double checking the doors to make sure they were locked. I had even started down the stairs to my bedroom. But preoccupied in my thoughts I turned around, went back to the living room. I turned on the light and sat down in my chair.

In that short expanse of time I hadn't realized that Chico had hopped up on my chair. I sat on him. He howled and cried in great pain and distress. It took quite some time to comfort him and calm him down. All the noise brought everyone else back out of bed. When I tried placing Chico down on the floor he couldn't walk--something was definitely wrong. So then we were off to an animal emergency center. An x-ray revealed his right leg bone was pulled out of it's hip socket. When the vet tried to pop it back into place it wouldn't stay. This told the vet there was extensive damage to the muscles and ligaments around the hip socket. We were told if we elected for surgery it would have been on another day with a specialist. My little buddy, Chico, was going on 14yrs old and showing little signs of his age. While the vets tried the first procedure of getting the leg in the hip socket. I prayed about it with God and I knew if it didn't work it would be time to let Chico go. But after receiving the report that the damage was more extensive it was still so very difficult to be saying, "Good-bye" when only a couple hours earlier he was pestering us to play with him. In a 2-second moment everything changed.

I know my Chico is only a dog but animal-lovers know how attached we get to them. The point in sharing this long rendition is you never know what the next moments will lead to. In my heart I knew my time with Chico was drawing to an end. But I never expected it to end in such an abrupt way. I never expected it to happen on such a good day. That is my whole point I guess--you never know, but God Knows! You never know, but God is right there to see you through when difficult decisions have to be made.

This whole thing was a reminder to me that life is short. When we don't know what the day is going to hold it is best when God is leading us. It was a reminder for me that relationships are important. I must watch the words I say and the things I do because I might not have an opportunity to apologize. Once a moment is spent it cannot be changed.