Happy New Year!!!!  Let’s all take a big breath and be grateful that 2020 is gone…. but certainly not forgotten.  I’m not naive, I know that the problems we had in 2020 are not going to magically disappear, but I can begin the new year with the hope that 2021 will be much better.  We had a really wet and cold New Year’s Eve with thunder and flood warnings.  Then at 9:30 p.m. all the lights went out in our house.  We opened the front door and all was dark everywhere we looked.  Wasn’t that just a perfect end to 2020?  The power was only off a couple of minutes but maybe that was the universe giving us a reset.  Fingers crossed.

With all that went on from March through December, I had one personal realization and we suffered two tragedies. 

I had a light bulb moment about 3 months ago.  My priorities were changing.  An opportunity for a new chapter in my life; a new chapter where I spend more time with those I love doing the things I love.  In order to begin this new chapter, I must retire.  And so I shall on July 1, 2022!  Life is short and I don’t want to put off that next chapter any longer than I have to.  If I could retire today, I would.

My husband came into my life when I was 44 and we have been together 17 years now.  One of the wonderful things about our marriage is that we would rather spend time with one another than with anyone else.   When we went into lock-down mode and spent even more time together, it made me aware that I needed more of that. Thankfully, he feels the same way.  When he asked me what changed my mind about retirement it was an easy answer.  I want to spend more time with you.  Retiring will also give me an opportunity to see my daughter and her family more.  They live in Arkansas and COVID kept from seeing them for a whole year.  Do you know how much a 9 and 12-year-old can change in a year?

In the middle of everything else going on last year, we lost both of our beloved Cavalier King Charles Spaniels within four months of one another.  We are heartbroken.  This was the first holiday season Keith and I haven’t had a dog.  I have to tell you; it is a huge hole in our life.  Both dogs suffered the horrible heart disease that Cavaliers are prone to.  We lost Maggie in July and Shawn in November.  She was just a few weeks away from her 9^th birthday and Shawn was 9.  Both deaths happened unexpectedly and we were not prepared.

When Maggie died I told my husband that at some point I might not want to have a dog in our life.  He was quick to respond by saying, that’s just your grief talking.  Of course he was right.  Shortly thereafter, we started trying to find a friend for Shawn, another Cavalier.  While we were actively trying to find another Cavalier puppy, I was taking Shawn to doggie day care for a half a day.  He absolutely loved it and we saw another fun side to him.  Then it happened again one Saturday night.  He went into congestive heart failure we lost him.  Again in my mind I told myself, no more dogs…..but of course that was my grief talking again.  Yes, we want another dog in our lives, we just need to grieve for a bit.  This time I had an additional emotion to add to my grief, anger.  I am not sure why, but I felt extreme anger over both of their deaths for weeks.  I still cry some days when I think about them and I still expect them to greet me at the back door.  It’s a process and we are working through it.

In moving forward, I was adamant about us not getting another Cavalier.  How was I going to get my husband on board with that?  Their personalities are what sold us on the breed to begin with.  A dog that would be happy just hanging out was what we wanted and what we got.  They were sweet, happy go lucky and great little travelers.  If I was going to talk him out of another Cavalier, I would need to find us another option and sell him on it.  After my research, I had come to a decision about our next dog breed and I called my daughter to talk about it.  When I told her I wasn’t sure I could sell my husband on it she had some sage advice.  “Mom, all he wants to do is make you happy.  Just talk to him.”  She was right of course.

I pulled up a picture of the Shih Tzu on my phone and went in to talk to him.  I tearfully said I couldn’t do another Cavalier and he agreed he couldn’t either.   “So what kind of dog would we get?” he asked.  I turned my phone to him to see the picture.  “What is that?” he asked.  A Shih Tzu, a Chinese lapdog who wants nothing more than to sit on our laps and hang out.  Then I said to him, “Guess what they most often die from.”  “What?” he asked.  OLD AGE, NOT HEART DISEASE.  So the search for our new baby has begun.

So as we begin 2021 with hope for a better year, I will remember 2020 for the things it gave us and for the hardships that came with it.