My Bulldogs

These are two of my bulldogs, Tank & Harley. I got them as puppies in May of 2006. Craig and I took these pictures in our backyard shortly after we moved here. I never realized how special Bulldogs were until I got a few of my own. Harley sleeps with me at night and snores like a freight train. Tank sleeps wherever he wants to and is my big beautiful boy. We have a website for them. www.tankrtots.com. Thanks to these amazing dogs I can stay home and raise baby bulldogs and make a decent living. For now it's what I need.

Last year my dad passed away. I had a hard time with it and felt a sense of panic toward life. One of the anchors in my life was gone. I felt like I was drifting out there at sea and the storms were on the horizon. He'd taught me how to sail. I had to trust in that and when we found two tumors through an ultrasound in my teenage daughter last October I felt the swell of that monster rogue wave make me nauseous. I couldn't even say the word Cancer without feeling the floor drop out from under me. I needed my dad to tell me all of this would be okay and I realized something so significant. He would always be with me. His words would come to me. Whenever I needed comfort I'd hear what he would have said. He was not gone. All my life he'd been preparing me for the day when he would have to go somewhere I couldn't be.

I suddenly felt grateful for that. Taryn's tumors were benign and our family lived through her three surgeries. All of us. I say that because when your child goes through something like that you suffer right along with her. You'd take the pain if you could and sometimes ask God for it just to make sure she doesn't have to take it all herself. I can't remember ever feeling that terrified and scared. I couldn't imagine living without her. We argue like every teenage daughter and her mother but she's my life in ways that she will never understand until she holds her own baby daughter and cries. You just want everything wonderful for your children. Everything fair and all lined up in a row. It doesn't seem to happen like that most of the time. Life is unfair and we knew it would be. It's tough. Every trial we live through strengthens us and makes us who we are.

So the bulldogs have given me a time out. I quit my advertising job in direct mail and felt a sense of relief that felt like taking off a pair of really tight panty hose. Sighhhhhhhhhh