Acceptance

Already a year has passed, but it seems just like yesterday that my Tiny girl left us to soar with the angels. Though I know she is now free from pain and blindness, I still miss her incredible softness and most of all that addictive unconditional love, the gift that keeps us in rescue.

The Beginning

Shock, was all that I could feel when a rescue friend placed a little piece of matted hair in my hands--three and a half pounds of hair, bone, and vacant big eyes. I will never forget that moment for as long as I live. The rain poured down around us as I held her to my chest and felt the beat of her heart, so tiny, so exhausted, so abused.

At first I couldn't understand why she couldn't walk and then my friend and I discovered the nails, nearly full circle, curled into her pads.
This was her first introduction to us. She didn't protest our ministrations until we attempted to trim the hair from her eyes. Only then did we see that there was still a lot of fight in that little bit of life.

Nails were clipped, her eyes were washed and trimmed, and then hours of gentle combing of her hair. Trinket's hair was in such poor condition that it came out by the handfuls. The pile of hair on the table was twice the size of that little feisty pup. That was just the tip of the iceberg, or should I say tail.

Trinket's teeth were so rotten that one fell out while she tried to eat, and the odor from rotting teeth could be detected three feet from her. The next morning she went to the vet for an overall exam. Needless to say I wasn't prepared for what I learned. If I could put some weight on her, maybe in a month she will be strong enough to face being spayed or having any shots. (If she lived that long, they told me later.) Anytime sooner, and they did not believe she would survive an anesthetic. So wait I did and feed her I did. One month later she weighed in at 5 lbs - the weight she maintained until much later.

The Journey

Over the next months, she won my heart and that of everyone who met her. Tiny in stature, but all five pounds was heart. She learned to play with me, slept in my arms or on the pillow next to my head and sometimes on the computer desk.

She loved to wander in the yard and bark her tiny bark when she wanted her mama. She survived losing all her teeth but would play bite me with her gums as they toughened in. Her favorite treat was pasta, no matter what kind, just pasta. She would start at the end of a piece as I held it for her and munch it down to the end. Her spot for meals was on a chair, protected from the rest of the Havn Hus Crew. Until her mouth got tougher she would eat from a paper napkin.

I never knew how old she really was, but when her eyes started to fail from inoperable cataracts and she was diagnosed with renal failure, the odds were that her time was limited. She adapted to sightlessness as easily as she did to eating a specially prepared diet for her kidney disease. Preparing her food was a labor of love.

But the angels had other plans for their little angel. She rebounded from crisis after crisis, but the final blow came when she moved too quickly from a real or imagined foe and dislocated her neck-- a vertebra too close to the head to allow for surgery. Morphine worked for a day or two but only prolonged the inevitable.

The Farewell

On July 29, 2003, my angel went to the Rainbow Bridge. I know she is free from pain, sees that rainbow again, and is with those who went before her.

The Eulogy

Trinket was a gift from the angels. She taught me so much about loving and caring for ill furbabies. She taught me that the last years of their lives and the time we spend to give them a couple of years of love, decent food, good vet care and housing is rewarded many times over by what we receive in return. She taught me how to care for the ill and dying, when to fight and when to let go. I was truly blessed by her time in my life. I am so very grateful for the privilege of loving and caring for her.

My memories of her softness, her unconditional love, her sweet little kisses, that warm little body cuddled against my breast when she slept or was feeling bad, play havoc with my heartstrings. But, I hear her message.

"Mommy, I'm free, I'm free - no more pain. I know you still love me, but it's time to save others like you did me. I am with you in spirit. When you feel a little tickle on your leg, and see nothing, it's me. Or when a little breeze touches your cheek on a still day, it's me. Until we meet again, I'll wait for you at the Rainbow Bridge."

Fly little angel. Fly.

By Anty Barb for her Trinket Angel
Forever Foster, forever in my heart.